Loneliness Among Elderly Widows and Its Effect on Social and Mental Well-being

Abstract

Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling within which an individual finds oneself under strong emptiness and depression due to the poor social connections and consequently leads to deterioration of one’s well-being. This phenomenon may become even worst in the case of older adult widows. Therefore, the current research aimed to analyze the moderating effect of education and skill among loneliness of adult widows on their social and mental well-being. The data was collected from 200 widows (60 years old or above) of government pensioners (scale 1 to 16) who receive their pensions from the National Bank of Punjab (NBP) and Bank of Punjab (BOP) through structured interviews using purposive sampling. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied for analysis using Smart-PLS (v.3.3). The findings of this study concluded that loneliness has a negative effect on social and mental well-being of older adult widows; however, the moderation effect of skills and education level altered the level of loneliness and brought a positive significant effect on mental and social well-being among the older adult widows. Therefore, it is recommended that projects of older adult education and skill enhancement may be launched based on inclusive models at the government and community level. Furthermore, opportunities of paid or volunteer work may be provided to educated and skilled older adult widows for their active and productive engagement towards society. To heal the negative effects of loneliness among them, drop-in centers may be established for their physical participation in recreational activities with new associates and companions.