Illuminating the Psychological Experience of Elderly Loneliness from a Societal Perspective: A Qualitative Study of Alienation between Older People and Society

Anna Wong, Anson K. C. Chau, Yang Fang and Jean Woo
Additional contact information
Anna Wong: CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Anson K. C. Chau: CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Yang Fang: CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Jean Woo: CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Loneliness is a common experience among older people that is associated with health risks and negative well-being. As a psychological phenomenon, it has typically been defined in Western research literature as the discrepancy between desired and actual interpersonal relations. In our qualitative study in Hong Kong, we offer insight into ageing and loneliness in an urban environment of the non-Western world and propose to reconceptualise loneliness by exploring older people’s experience of alienation at the societal level as an important but often neglected dimension of their loneliness. Thirty-seven community-dwelling, Chinese adults aged 65 and above were interviewed in focus groups and their accounts analysed and interpreted using a phenomenological approach. Findings revealed that focus group participants perceived insufficient care for older people, a growing distance between themselves and society, and their disintegrating identity in society to be primary sources of societal alienation. In response, older people adopted a more passive lifestyle, attributed marginalisation and inequality to old age, and developed negative feelings including unease towards ageing, vulnerability and helplessness, and anger. The emergence of these key components and underlying themes of societal alienation illuminated neglected facets of the psychological phenomenon of loneliness and highlighted new implications for policy, practice, and research from a societal perspective to address older people’s loneliness in urban settings.

Keywords: loneliness; social exclusion; social isolation; urban living; aging; phenomenology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/824/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/824/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:7:p:824-:d:105531

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().