 Alleviating loneliness during COVID-19: The impact of neighbor cohesion and social connections in EnglandPiera Bello, Cinzia Di Novi, Gianmaria Martini and Caterina Sturaro Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 2024, vol. 93, issue C Abstract: This paper investigates the role of pre-pandemic levels of social interactions in mitigating the impact of mobility restrictions, implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19, on feelings of loneliness. Using individual-level data from the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study (U.K.HLS) on ’Understanding Society,’ we analyze the relationship between loneliness and both neighborhood social cohesion and individual social networks, both before and during the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that both social cohesion in the neighborhood where people live and good social relations (i.e., having close friends) play a protective role in alleviating the adverse effects of pandemic-related restrictions on loneliness. On the contrary, we do not find evidence of benefits coming from time spent on digital social networks. This underscores the critical importance of fostering and maintaining in person social connections, even in the face of challenges posed by the pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19; Lockdown; Loneliness; Neighborhood social cohesion; Social relations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceps:v:93:y:2024:i:c:s0038012124001125 DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2024.101913 Access Statistics for this article Socio-Economic Planning Sciences is currently edited by Barnett R. Parker More articles in Socio-Economic Planning Sciences from Elsevier |
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