The Effect of Loneliness on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study 2017–2021

Nico Seifert ()
Additional contact information
Nico Seifert: RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2024, vol. 19, issue 4, No 9, 23 pages

Abstract: Abstract Although loneliness is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being, little is known about the precise nature of this association. Theoretical arguments have indicated a negative effect of loneliness on well-being, but there are alternative explanations, such as the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. This study investigates whether loneliness is detrimental to subjective well-being by considering selection as a competing explanation. The analyses were based on three waves of panel data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2017–2021, containing 85,083 observations from 31,223 individuals aged 16 to 103 years). Subjective well-being was measured using a single item capturing life satisfaction. Loneliness was measured both directly using a single item and indirectly using the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. First, pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) models were estimated to confirm previous cross-sectional findings. Subsequently, fixed-effects (FE) models were used to account for the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. The results of the POLS models showed that lonely people reported significantly lower levels of life satisfaction. This association persisted in the FE model, and the remaining association can be interpreted as evidence of the negative effect of loneliness on well-being. Further analyses showed that the results were similar for men and women and for younger and older people. Moreover, the results were remarkably robust across the two measures of loneliness and model specifications. Overall, the results support the claim that loneliness is detrimental to well-being. Thus, intervention strategies aimed at reducing loneliness may also be effective in improving well-being in the general population.

Keywords: Loneliness; Subjective well-being; Life satisfaction; Fixed-effects regression; UKHLS; Understanding Society (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-024-10302-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ariqol:v:19:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s11482-024-10302-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-024-10302-3

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().