THE GEOGRAPHIC LAYOUTS OF OLDER EUROPEANS’ SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LONELINESS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Abstract Many older Europeans sustain core personal networks that are geographically dispersed. The pandemic has brought concerns about their mental health, especially during lockdown periods when travel was not permissible and casual local contact was limited. This study examines whether and how older adults’ loneliness and depressed feelings vary by the prior geographic layouts of their core discussion networks. It uses a sample of community-dwelling respondents aged 50 and above (Wave 6, in 2015) from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), with a follow-up at Wave 8 in 2020 during the height of the COVID pandemic. Latent Class Analysis and linear regression show that individuals whose networks were comprised mainly of families 5-25km and >25km away were not especially likely to feel lonely or distressed, despite typically lacking nearby confidants. We also uncover groups of people occupying more compositionally diverse networks. While these individuals were generally more likely to perceive loneliness, they tended not to attribute such feelings to the pandemic onset. The exception was individuals sustaining diverse networks comprised mainly of friends and families at intermediate distances (5-25km), who perceived heightened loneliness in the pandemic. Overall, even scattered at longer distances, family-oriented networks demonstrate good protectiveness against loneliness and depression. Meanwhile, diverse networks appeared to fall short in protectiveness under some conditions of geographic dispersion.