Loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from five European countries.

[en] We use quarterly panel data from the COME-HERE survey covering five European countries to analyse three facets of the experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in terms of prevalence, loneliness peaked in April 2020, followed by a U-shape pattern in the rest of 2020, and then remained relatively stable throughout 2021 and 2022. We then establish the individual determinants of loneliness and compare them to those found in the literature predating the COVID-19 pandemic. As in previous work, women are lonelier, and partnership, education, income, and employment protect against loneliness. However, the pandemic substantially shifted the age profile: it is now the youngest who are the loneliest. We last show that pandemic policies affected loneliness, which rose with containment policies but fell with government economic support. Conversely, the intensity of the pandemic itself, via the number of recent COVID-19 deaths, had only a minor impact. The experience of the pandemic has thus shown that public policy can influence societal loneliness trends.

Disciplines :

Business & economic sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

REBECHI, Alessio ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Health and Behaviour

LEPINTEUR, Anthony ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Health and Behaviour

CLARK, Andrew ; University of Luxembourg ; Paris School of Economics ; CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique [FR]

ROHDE, Nicholas; Griffith University [AU]

VÖGELE, Claus ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Health and Behaviour

D'AMBROSIO, Conchita ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Health and Behaviour

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from five European countries.

Publication date :

20 August 2024

Journal title :

Economics and Human Biology

ISSN :

1570-677X

eISSN :

1873-6130

Publisher :

Elsevier, Amsterdam, Nl

Volume :

Pages :

101427

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Funding number :

ANR-21-CO16-0002; Grant 14840950 – COME-HERE; ANR-17-EURE-0001

Funding text :

Financial support from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-21-CO16-0002), André Losch Fondation, Art2Cure, Cargolux, CINVEN Fondation and COVID-19 Foundation, under the aegis of the Fondation de Luxembourg, and the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg (Grant 14840950 – COME-HERE) is gratefully acknowledged. Andrew Clark acknowledges financial support from the EUR grant ANR-17-EURE-0001.

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since 22 August 2024

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