Introduction

The UK government became the world’s first to appoint a Minister for Loneliness in 2018, formalising growing public concern about the phenomenon (The Prime Minister’s Office, 2018). Representative and longitudinal data show that up to 20% of people report loneliness – mostly younger (<30 years) and older people (65+), especially those aged 70+ (Hawkley et al., 2022; Relationships Australia, 2018). Context is also critical: for instance, loneliness ranges from 35% to 61% among older people living in care (nursing) homes (Gardiner et al., 2020). Loneliness re-gained public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic due to lockdowns and isolation measures restricting physical interaction (O’Sullivan et al., 2021b). In mid-2020, an international survey indicated that 20% of respondents reported moderate and 21% severe loneliness (O’Sullivan et al., 2021a). Concerned about loneliness during COVID-19, the Japanese government appointed a Loneliness Minister in 2021 (Osaki, 2021). However, longitudinal data are needed to distinguish between temporary pandemic-induced loneliness and prolonged forms.

Prolonged loneliness has harmful health effects for older people, including increased dementia risk and social exclusion (Neves et al., 2019; O’Sullivan et al., 2021b). While loneliness can affect later life, being older does not mean being lonely: older people vulnerable to loneliness tend to live alone or in care homes and face health or social circumstances impacting connections, like institutionalisation (Gardiner et al., 2020; Neves et al., 2019, 2023a; Smith and Victor, 2019). Dominated by a psychological approach emphasising individualistic perspectives, research often neglects these circumstances and their influence on perceptions, feelings and expressions of loneliness (Barbosa Neves et al., 2023; Franklin, 2009). This approach tends to pathologise loneliness, framing it within mental health or ‘modern behavioural’ epidemics and positing psychotherapies as interventions (Jeste et al., 2020). Yet, loneliness extends beyond individual psychopathology. It is a complex feeling of lacking meaningful relationships, intertwining with social values and norms (Franklin, 2009; Neves et al., 2019). For instance, lonely people are commonly viewed through a ‘deficit’ lens, labelled as passive or socially unskilled (Kerr and Stanley, 2021), which shapes loneliness experiences and responses. Sociological knowledge can provide such comprehensive understandings, especially as we lack theoretical reflections on meanings and lived experiences of loneliness (Franklin, 2009; Neves et al., 2023a; O’Sullivan et al., 2021a).

Notwithstanding a few exceptions (Franklin, 2009; Franklin et al., 2019), contemporary sociological theorising of loneliness remains nascent. To help address this gap, we engage Therborn’s (2013) conceptualisation of existential inequality to explore loneliness in later life. Existential inequality highlights the unequal social allocations of personhood (Therborn, 2013), providing a valuable framework to situate loneliness as a personal and social issue associated with deficits, devaluation and exclusion. Additionally, it enables focus on the contextual interplays between agentic (e.g. action, choice) and structural (e.g. social settings, norms) dimensions that can produce inequalities. Later life and related contexts – living settings (e.g. care homes) and health and social status (e.g. perceptions of age-related illnesses or ageing) – can illuminate links between loneliness and existential inequality. We thereby ask: how can framing loneliness in later life as existential inequality advance understandings of the phenomenon? To answer this question, we draw on studies with vulnerable older people reporting prolonged loneliness.

Approaching Loneliness Sociologically

Loneliness is generally defined as lacking companionship and quality relationships – based on a classic definition of ‘discrepancy between one’s desired and achieved levels of social relations’ (Perlman and Peplau, 1981: 32). It is distinct from living alone, solitude (desired/positive alone time) and social isolation (low/non-existent social support, participation and relationships) (Long and Averill, 2003; Smith and Victor, 2019). Perceptions and experiences of loneliness are shaped by socio-historical practices and values, such as western late modernity’s evolving social structures and bonds as well as its exhortation of independence and self-sufficiency (Franklin, 2009; Franklin et al., 2019). Thus, loneliness is located within social, historical and emotional contexts. Yet, the psychological approach minimising loneliness’s social nature by favouring individualistic notions is privileged in public responses, like initiatives promoting individual resilience (Barbosa Neves et al., 2023). As Franklin (2009: 345, emphases in original) notes: ‘We must of course measure loneliness as it impacts on the individual, as a result of the slings and arrows of everyday fortunes. But it would be a mistake to pass it off merely as an individual biographical thing.’ Typologies attempt to capture this multidimensionality. Sociologist Weiss’s (1973) popular classification distinguishes between ‘emotional’ (absence of close/intimate ties) and ‘social’ (absence of broader social networks) loneliness. Another prevalent type is ‘existential loneliness’ (EL), conceptualised as a condition of human nature – and postulated by some authors as positive self-growth (Ettema et al., 2010; Moustakas, 1961). However, this positive interpretation conflicts with research consistently demonstrating that loneliness is an involuntary and painful experience associated with loss (Van Tilburg, 2021; Weiss, 1973). To address EL’s ambiguity, Bolmsjö et al. (2019: 1322) proposed a comprehensive definition:

awareness of being fundamentally separated from other people and from the universe, primarily through experiencing oneself as mortal, or, and especially when in a crisis, experiencing not being met (communicated with) at a deep human (i.e., authentic) level, and typically therefore experiencing negative feelings, that is, emotions or moods, such as sadness, hopelessness, grief, meaninglessness or anguish.

Still, disentangling existential loneliness from other types remains challenging, as meaninglessness and anguish are elements of emotional loneliness, whereas a sense of social separation overlaps with social loneliness (Van Tilburg, 2021). One could argue EL embodies the isolation owing to mortality (the Heideggerian ‘nobody can die for me’, Heidegger, 1962: 284), detaching it from emotional or social loneliness. But this can result in asocial loneliness, since the source of separation can be from people or ‘the universe’ (Bolmsjö et al., 2019). While typologies illustrate loneliness’s multifacetedness, studies show emotional loneliness more accurately reflects people’s experiences (Van Tilburg, 2021).

We approach loneliness relationally – as both personal and social. Personal encompasses emotional feelings of loneliness and its outcomes. Social entails social structures, contexts and practices that create and shape experiences of loneliness, but also its perception and expression. From this relational standpoint, we situate loneliness within a dynamic and frequently hard-to-disentangle assemblage of individual and social dimensions (Barbosa Neves et al., 2023; Franklin et al., 2019). Highlighting this relationality means investigating agentic and structural relationships, too. The interplay between agency (one’s actions and choices) and structure (norms, social institutions) illuminates how people identify and manage loneliness. The sociology of emotion offers a fruitful linkage here, since ‘emotion is provoked by circumstance and is experienced as transformation of dispositions to act. It is through the subject’s active exchange with others that emotional experience is both stimulated in the actor and orientating of their conduct’ (Barbalet, 2002: 4). In particular, ‘feeling rules’ (social norms and scripts about feelings) and ‘emotion work’ (efforts to manage emotions in response to social contexts) – as developed by Hochschild (1979, 2002) – are useful concepts to explore the relationality of loneliness (Neves et al., 2023a). For instance, social connotations surrounding loneliness might accentuate lonely people’s need to employ/follow scripts and rules to offset negative associations with loneliness. To further connect the personal and social, the agentic and structural, we must consider how one’s loneliness shapes and is shaped by socio-cultural settings and practices, social status and identities – but also by broader processes of power, such as the social devaluations attributing deficits to lonely people. For this, existential inequality offers a comprehensive framework, as explained next.

Existential Inequality

To understand social inequality, Therborn (2013: 37) recommends opening ‘conceptual windows’ to grasp its multi-layered nature and effects, including how inequalities affect personhood. Combining inequality and personhood expands our conceptualisation of loneliness not only as an emotion or experience, but also as a phenomenon shaped within unequal and devalued personal/social and agentic/structural contexts. Therborn draws on Sen’s (1992, 2009) equality as capability to fully function as a person. Inequality is ‘not just about the size of wallets’; it is a ‘socio-cultural order, which reduces our capabilities to function as human beings, our health, our self-respect, our sense of self, as well as our resources to act and participate in this world’ (Therborn, 2013: 1). Capabilities include survival, health, freedom and other resources to pursue them (Therborn, 2013).

Through this capability approach, Therborn (2013: 48) engages with Nussbaum’s (2011) ideas of dignity to outline three basic human dimensions (i.e. organism, person and actor) and corresponding kinds of inequality: vital, existential and resource. Vital inequality refers to ‘socially constructed unequal life-chances of human organisms’, relating to life expectancy, health expectancy and malnutrition; existential inequality ¹ encompasses the ‘unequal allocation of personhood, i.e., of autonomy, dignity, degrees of freedom, and of rights to respect and self-development’; and resource inequality involves having ‘unequal resources to act’, beyond just economic capital (Therborn, 2013: 49).

These inequalities are different but interact. Existential inequality ‘sends’ impacts to vital and resource inequalities, while ‘receiving’ impacts from resource inequality (Therborn, 2013: 53). All are produced and maintained through four complementary ‘mechanisms’: distanciation (winners vs. losers; running ahead/falling behind), exploitation (extraction; abuse; power relations), exclusion (discrimination; stigmatisation; advantage accumulation) and hierarchisation (social ranking; lifestyle/taste hierarchies) (Therborn, 2013). In contrast, equality mechanisms include approximation (catching up; systemic arrangements like affirmative action), redistribution/rehabilitation, inclusion and de-hierarchisation (Therborn, 2013).

Therborn (2013) argues existential inequality is still under-recognised, although its manifestations – like racism and sexism – have been extensively researched. Sociology traditionally studies personhood in relation to dignity, autonomy, freedom and emotions; however, it tends to privilege one dimension/theme over others (Therborn, 2013). Existential inequality integrates those various dimensions in an overarching approach, linking personhood with social conditions. It emphasises the role of ‘deficit’ discourses/practices and power dynamics in meanings, feelings, lived experiences and sense of self. For example, western societies’ celebration of hyper-sociability contributes to lonely people being viewed as deficient in social skills (Hookway et al., 2019; Kerr and Stanley, 2021). These narratives can affect how loneliness is defined and managed by those experiencing it. Existential inequality brings a specific lens to better illuminate the devaluation(s) linked with loneliness as an emotion, experience and phenomenon. It furnishes a comprehensive way of connecting meanings, emotions and contexts of loneliness, without neglecting micro and macro processes and outcomes of social valuation/devaluation. As such, existential inequality complements and extends the sociologies of emotion and personhood.

Power dynamics are important to understand emotions, but more attention to power is required to advance studies of emotional expressions and effects (Burkitt, 1997; Scheff, 2003). Existential inequality offers that focus, centring power relationships concerning the person and their feelings. Additionally, it supports expansive conceptions of personhood, addressing the sociological ambivalence towards theorising the ‘person’ (Mead, 2021). While personhood holds centrality in symbolic interactionism as a social category and ‘desirable status’ ² (Goffman, 1959: 473), Mead (2021) shows contemporary sociological conceptualisations of personhood shuffle between efforts to overcome liberal individualism or update a paradigm based on properties enclosed within the person. Mead (2021) draws on Pierre Bourdieu to define personhood not only as intrinsic to the person but regarding the world within and outside the person. This relational view underlines the symbolic power of an audience to validate one’s personhood (Mead, 2021), reinforcing the relevance of existential inequality to assess a person’s social value and affronts to it (Therborn, 2013).

Therefore, existential inequality provides a valuable lens to illuminate how personhood and related dignity and autonomy present to lonely older people in their everyday lifeworlds. It directly captures the person and their emotions and social circumstances, stressing the relationship between personhood, agency and structure. This aligns with our relational approach to loneliness, recognising its personal/social and agentic/structural interplays – that is, as emotions and experiences felt by individuals with roots, countenances, displays and responses influenced by social structures, from norms to living settings.

For Therborn (2013), existential inequality is studied by grasping people’s constraints and degradations, social interactions and institutional norms and power. We apply existential inequality to lived experiences of older people (65+) affected by prolonged loneliness, focusing on constraints, degradations and social interactions among the groups most vulnerable to loneliness: frail older people living in care/nursing homes (institutionalised) and older people living alone with health/social limitations (Gardiner et al., 2020; Neves et al., 2023a). Within this lens, to better unpack the complexities of social interactions and emotions in our data, we engage with Goffman’s work on personhood and Hochschild’s emotion research. Existential inequality affords the overall framing to attend to experiences/understandings of personal and social devaluation and explore the outcomes originating from interactions and emotions among lonely older people.

Case Studies: Loneliness in Later Life

This article is based on two qualitative studies, combined through a multiple-case method (Yin, 2018). The studies aimed to grasp lived experiences of loneliness in later life, focusing on distinct groups vulnerable to loneliness: frail older people living in care homes, and those living alone during pandemic restrictions. The similar aims facilitated a multiple-case study approach, enabling cross-case synthesis of similarities and differences. Such an approach deepened our understandings of loneliness, allowing exploration of the applicability of existential inequality.

Studies were approved by our ethics committees. Given the structural vulnerabilities affecting participants (ill health, institutionalisation), we employed a micro-ethics approach prioritising their autonomy and safety beyond procedural ethics. To prevent individuals from feeling judged/labelled as lonely and distrusting staff/organisations, recruiting personnel assisting us (from care homes and local councils) were asked to check with potential participants whether they felt lonely and wished to participate in our study. We contacted those who agreed to both, inviting them to discuss concerns before signing consent forms. As loneliness could make participants less likely to contemplate drawbacks of participation because of the project’s inherent social interaction, we sought ongoing verbal consent throughout data collection. Owing to its longitudinal design, participants in the second study were given AUD$50 gift cards but were assured withdrawing would not impact compensation. Considering the studies’ sensitive topic, we were available for contact, provided information on community/support services and followed up where appropriate.

The first study explored how older Australians (65+) living in care/nursing homes perceived, experienced and responded to loneliness. It was based on a six-month qualitative design, including participant observation and interviews with residents of two care homes (Neves et al., 2019). Bluebell (pseudonym) had mostly single rooms for middle/high-income residents and a luxurious/hotel-like environment with gardens and a public cafe. Rosewood (pseudonym) was a smaller facility with mostly shared rooms, catering primarily to low/middle-income residents. Participant observation was conducted in the daytime over several weeks, capturing institutional, social and spatial contexts. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews, averaging 60 minutes, were then conducted with residents experiencing or at risk of loneliness (11 per facility). Recruitment occurred in partnership with staff, who identified residents experiencing or at risk of loneliness due to family loss or health decline and able to provide consent. Interviewees included 16 women and six men (65 to 95 years old), from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds (Table 1). Although we did not directly ask about cultural identity or ethnicity, 11 participants indicated being from African, South Asian or European backgrounds.

Field notes and interviews were thematically analysed to identify codes and themes within (individual) and across (collective) cases (Saldaña, 2016). Coding was deductive and inductive; it included codes corresponding to interview questions/categories, but also new information uncovered in the data (Saldaña, 2016). After in-depth engagement with transcripts/notes, we generated preliminary codes, combined codes into themes, revised themes in relation to the dataset and refined final themes. Data were coded independently and then collectively by the first and second authors, reaching consensus on final themes. As our qualitative ethos is reflexive and situated, we cannot claim data saturation. Rather, to conclude thematic generation, we employed a trustworthiness strategy (Saldaña, 2016) to ensure findings were credible, transferable, dependable and confirmable. For this, transcripts were analysed separately; results discussed; and reflections undertaken on how our backgrounds (class, diverse ethnicities) and values impacted – and enriched – data collection and analysis.

The second study explored how older Australians (65+) living alone perceived, experienced and responded to their loneliness. Despite being conducted during the 2020 pandemic, participants were asked to reflect on loneliness before and during COVID-19. We employed a mixed-methods design, including semi-structured interviews, loneliness scales and qualitative diaries collected from July to December 2020, throughout lockdowns. ³ This article is based on the diaries, privileging a rich ‘bottom–up’ approach, as participants decide what to diarise (Hyers, 2018).

Diaries were produced by 32 older people, part of a larger study drawing on a purposive sample recruited with Victorian urban and regional councils. Selection criteria included older people living alone in the community, self-reporting loneliness, fluent in English and able to provide informed consent. The diary sample included 18 women and 14 men (69 to 96 years old) from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds, including 16 who mentioned having African, Asian or European roots. Eighteen participants resided in middle-income areas (five in regional), seven in low-income areas and seven in high-income areas (one in regional) (Table 1). Diarists recorded daily feelings, thoughts and activities during a COVID-19 lockdown (October 2020). They were asked to record entries at least twice daily for seven days (morning and evening) and were provided with prompts to use as desired. Some followed these; others wrote less structured entries. Diary format and duration were agreed with participants, accommodating their needs: 19 participants preferred paper diaries and were sent journals and pens; the remainder opted for digital diaries (emails, text, audio recordings). While diaries have proved useful to address sensitive issues (Hyers, 2018), they can impact participants’ well-being. Thus, we talked to participants immediately before and after diary completion to brief/debrief. Diaries were also thematically analysed, following the procedures outlined for the first study. The first study’s findings (Neves et al., 2019, 2023d) deductively informed the coding of the second, while upholding an inductive approach to identify new elements in the data. This further assisted with cross-case synthesis of the projects.

Next, we report on thematic results, focusing on how existential inequality might help us understand and contextualise older people’s loneliness. For this, we describe links participants established between loneliness, personhood/being and social contexts, including power dynamics.

Results

Understanding Loneliness

Participants defined loneliness as multifaceted, and their meanings can be categorised into two domains: social/structural and personal/agentic. In the first, it was understood as relational and linked to oldering; in the second, it was perceived as personal troubles and sickness.

For all, loneliness was relational – associated with lack of intimate relationships, loss of close family or friends and/or reduced meaningful interactions. For example, for Night Writer (care home (CH)), ‘Lonely is not having anybody (. . .) Nobody wants me.’ For June (living alone (LA)): ‘There isn’t anyone here to talk to. Gets a bit lonely.’ Participants in care homes emphasised being surrounded by people but not having anyone ‘to really talk to’, whereas those living alone described not having anyone to share daily moments with. For many, a clear distinction was made between feeling lonely and living/being alone. Yet loneliness amplified the incumbrance of living alone, particularly during a pandemic. For those in care homes, loneliness amplified the challenges of living with others without having meaningful engagement or intimacy. Despite similar outcomes for both groups, the processes underpinning the emergence and persistence of loneliness appeared to vary based on participants’ contexts.

For some, loneliness was seen as oldering – linked to a negative ageing process. This included frailty and age-related health issues, decreased social interaction, ageism and, for those in care homes, institutionalisation and dependency. Many mentioned losing friends, as with age ‘people stop caring about you’ (N, CH), so ‘you don’t get attention from your friends or family’ (Charlie, CH). Even making new friends at the care home was a risk, as explained by Shoodoo: ‘I have to be careful, and I have done it twice. You’ve become too fond of the person, and then they pass away; there is a big gap left in your life.’ Loneliness was ‘part of growing old’ (Pep, CH), and being ‘too old’ was a recurrent loneliness motif identified across studies. Bob (LA) wrote in his diary: ‘Who wants anything to do with an old-age pensioner regarded as unproductive, invalid, good-for-nothing-old-man, parasite on the community?’

Loneliness was also defined as personal trouble, ⁴ associated with personality traits and life choices. For some, introversion or ‘lack of efforts’ affected quality relationships. For others, career and family decisions, such as relationship dissolution, led to loneliness as a personal trouble. Participants placed responsibility on themselves to counteract loneliness, self-criticising when failing. For Isabelle (CH), ‘It’s best to work out your own problems. I don’t want to be a nuisance to my children.’ And as Alan (LA) shared in his diary: ‘Being lonely I see as completely my fault’ (see Figure 1 for full entry), being ‘too old’ and ‘uninteresting’ to make friends.

Finally, we found understandings of loneliness as cognitive and emotional sickness. This was primarily identified in the first study (care homes), which focused on a setting linked to illness, although also highlighted by participants in the second. For Artie (CH), loneliness was a ‘frightening disease’, worse than ill health ailing him, including depression. For Vincent (LA), loneliness, like illness, ‘can slowly cause you to withdraw from life’. Because participants sometimes viewed this ‘sickness’ as a ‘mindset’ (Judy, LA) embedded in the ‘head’s grey matter’ (Kid, CH), the responsibility for addressing loneliness seemed internalised.

These four understandings shed light on how loneliness is viewed and experienced as a personal and agentic issue (Franklin, 2009), interacting with notions of personhood from one’s value to self-responsibility (Goffman, 1959; Therborn, 2013). Such notions are framed by diverse personal circumstances (career choices, relationship status) and broader structures (age, living setting). Variations like gender, residential area (low/middle/high-income) or other socio-cultural backgrounds, appear to sustain shared understandings of loneliness as perceived devaluation – even if those understandings are shaped differently by participants’ contexts. While loneliness looks like a personal trouble, it is also a public trouble influenced by social relationships and milieus (Mills, 1959). Participants’ meanings highlight how the ‘lonely self’ is seen within unequal/devalued structures, from one’s social status (old, frail, uninteresting, dependent) to different living settings (institutionalisation, isolation orders, living alone) that constrain relationships and personhood. Together, these contexts seem to both activate and uphold the devaluation associated with existential inequalities (Therborn, 2013).

Feeling Lonely

Most participants experienced prolonged or persistent loneliness, meaning it was not a temporary or new feeling; they had been lonely for months or years. Those in care homes often encountered loneliness after losing close relationships (usually spouses) or after transitioning to the facility. A mutual narrative among residents was that visits/calls from family decreased as time in the institution increased. Those living alone were mostly lonely before the pandemic – due to singlehood, family breakdown or illness – but reported exacerbated loneliness, as coping strategies like attending social groups were interrupted during lockdowns.

Feeling lonely was a negative experience causing deep emotional suffering and affecting personhood. Participants felt ‘miserable’, ‘unwanted’, ‘forgotten’, ‘abandoned’, ‘rejected’, ‘dumped’, ‘empty’ and ‘hopeless’. Ella (LA) wrote about the existential strain of loneliness: ‘looking to getting to sleep so it is one day less of my life to get through’ (see Figure 2 for full diary entry). Isy (LA) captured the common feeling of having ‘nothing to get up for’. Many revealed constant crying and desolation. We also encountered instances of suicidal ideation, as illustrated by N (CH), who wanted ‘to die quickly’, and Doris (LA), who ‘would like to leave this earth’.

Most participants internalised blame, shame and guilt about loneliness – they blamed themselves for not being more ‘active’ or ‘resilient’ and felt shameful and guilty about being lonely. Those in care homes described guilt because they had family and visitors, unlike their peers; those living alone, because they were not institutionalised. As Artie (CH) elucidated: ‘I’m one of the lucky ones! A lot of them [other residents] don’t get visitors (. . .) and the visitors who come, couldn’t get out quick enough!’

Internalisations of blame and guilt led to a silent suffering of loneliness, as participants across studies rarely discussed their feelings with others. For instance, Joanne (CH) told us she ‘must keep them to meself [sic]’, but then that one must talk about it with loved ones – acknowledging her inconsistency, she laughed, emphasising she is ‘dumb’ and we should listen to what she says, not does. As residents’ desired frequency of family visits/contacts was unmet, there was pressure to guarantee that when those interactions happened, they were positive. Those in care homes justified not disclosing their loneliness to family, staff or other residents since it was a ‘hard and sad thing to talk about’ (Elsie) and they did not want to be ‘another burden’ (Pep) on their families, who had ‘very busy lives’ (Audrey). Liz, for example, moved to the care home to not ‘impose’ on her children. Disclosing loneliness also meant recognising personal failures, compounding compromised personhood as frail and institutionalised older people. ‘You should’ve seen me before’ was a recurring narrative to describe their past self. References to frail ageing bodies as ‘invalid’, for example, revealed ableism, following general societal associations between frailty and disability and constructions of disability as inherently negative (Van der Horst and Vickerstaff, 2022).

For those living alone, the main reason to conceal loneliness was fear of damaging their independent status or being placed in a care home. For instance, June divulged: ‘I tell everyone I love being on my own, but in fact, I hate it.’ Diarists wrote about keeping loneliness to themselves, as families were busy home-schooling and working remotely during the pandemic. Several mentioned our research being the first avenue to share experiences of loneliness without fear of judgement or reprisal.

When a few participants disclosed their loneliness to those around them, they felt dismissed. Gurney (CH) tried to broach the subject with staff but was ‘not listened to’ because he is ‘old’ and ‘not allowed to think’. Throughout the participant observation stage of the first study, we saw that when residents approached staff or visitors with negative feelings (loneliness, sadness, etc.), they were quickly redirected to more upbeat conversations about the weather, garden or friends in the care home. Conversations among residents were also limited, even during social activities. Many participants mentioned not wanting to make other residents ‘depressed’ by talking about loneliness.

Feeling lonely upsets one’s social value and ‘older self’, configuring internalisations of feelings and scripts to uphold self-presentation (Goffman, 1959; Hochschild, 1979). Trying to present as not-lonely, independent or not-burdensome aimed to minimise this devaluation (Therborn, 2013). Feeling rules (Hochschild, 1979) about loneliness were visible in how participants mediated between what they felt (sadness, guilt, blame) and what they thought they should feel (resilience, positivity, gratefulness). What they felt and should feel appeared to also be shaped by their different social contexts, as living alone or in a care home contributed to diverse reasons for feelings and emotional reactions. The feeling rule about what they should feel appeared to inform what they tried to feel (emotion work) through silence and non-disclosure, as examined in the next section. These feeling rules illustrate how existential inequality – through unequal allocations of personhood – shapes social scripts about loneliness that are often internalised as a deficiency/problem. Participants already felt stigmatised due to structural vulnerabilities influencing their later lives, such as the devaluation of being old, frail, institutionalised or alone. Adding loneliness to that configuration further complicated their status, autonomy and dignity, while affecting moments with family/carers and friends. These experiences of loneliness did not seem to extensively differ based on other dimensions like gender or socio-cultural background. Yet, participants’ lived experiences show how the stigmas of being old, frail and lonely interplay in complex ways, resulting from – and potentially compounding – existential inequalities.

Responding to Loneliness

While participants described the debilitation caused by loneliness, all engaged in management or coping strategies to attempt to deal with it. As Vincent (LA) diarised, loneliness ‘wears you down’ – but, as his grandmother used to say, ‘life is not a matter of holding good cards but playing a poor hand well’ (see Figure 3). We identified numerous strategies, within two key categories: individual and social responses. Individual responses included keeping oneself occupied, like pursuing hobbies or doing chores, whereas social responses involved participating in community groups, seeking social interactions and volunteering.

For those in care homes, both individual and social responses were restricted. Individual responses were constrained by a standardised, controlled environment: for example, Night Writer was a ‘night owl’ who was put to ‘bed at half past 8’; Kid liked ‘to do things [him]self’, but ‘when they [staff] come in, you feel your independence thrown out’. Social responses were constrained by availability of care home activities, health and physical mobility, calls/visits from family/friends and other residents. The prevalence of people living with dementia in both facilities complicated ‘normal conversation[s] . . . it’s like talking to the wall’ (Audrey). Nonetheless, many participants helped residents without visitors, assuaging the loneliness of those residents and their own. Several reached out to friends outside the facilities, but most had lost contact or friends had passed. Friendships appeared affected by the stigma of being institutionalised, frail and lonely. Audrey felt pressure from her family and doctor to move into the care home after she fell. She did not tell her friends she was at the facility because of embarrassment regarding declining health, institutionalisation and subsequent loneliness: ‘I’m the last person they think would be here . . . like this . . . I don’t want to go through this whole rigmarole story with them.’

For those living alone, loneliness management had different constraints. Individual responses were more flexible, as participants had more autonomy and agency to decide what to do, from gardening to outings. But they were still shaped by scripts about how to occupy their time as independent older people, as well as by blame and guilt. For instance, Doris was usually busy with volunteering and community engagement, yet: ‘my daughter blamed me that I don’t have more friends (. . .) she always blames me for not doing things that are online or on TV’. During the pandemic, Doris’ volunteering stopped, and she decided to learn Mandarin online, but was still ‘very lonely and very bored . . . at age 91’. Social responses were inhibited by stigmas, identity and frailty, which appeared amplified by the pandemic. During lockdowns, most turned to digital technology to keep in touch with loved ones. While digital communication, like video calls, helped participants address loneliness, it was deemed insufficient to completely address their social needs. Some saw communication reduced to quick online check-ins due to lockdown demands on families, enhancing their sense of disconnection and loneliness; others became more aware of their loneliness when realising they had few contacts to reach out to, or when friends would occasionally call specifically because participants were lonely. As Hilton shared, ‘the call I received from this friend of mine it’s very nice and I enjoyed it but the moment you hang up you realise he phoned you because you’re alone. That’s another reminder.’

The ageism felt before and during the pandemic – concerning portrayals of older people as disposable, dependent and technologically incompetent (Cook et al., 2023; Neves et al., 2023b) – strained loneliness management, including uptake of digital technology for those not knowing how to use it. Broader understandings of ‘growing old’ further suffused responses to loneliness, even among those from collectivist cultural backgrounds that typically value ageing (Alejandria-Gonzalez et al., 2018). As Bob (LA), from Egypt, illustrated:

through my teen years, I always believed that I am part of a close-knit family, I mean extended family and the rest of the community in general, very caring and supportive community (. . .) But later in life I was horrified to discover otherwise (. . .) as I grew old, it became increasingly clearer that [this] is a real fact of older age. Every morning I receive a very brief welfare phone call from the Red Cross just to check that I am still alive.

For both groups, social responses appeared more successful to tackle loneliness than individual ones. But as social responses were still based on absence of persistent social connectedness (i.e. continuous meaningful interactions), they precluded full alleviation of loneliness. Interacting with someone helped reduce loneliness at that moment but was temporary if not sustained; it merely distracted from loneliness. Ultimately, most responses involved staying occupied to distract from loneliness. Helen (LA) diarised: ‘I figure the busier you are the less time you have to think.’ And Wuggie (LA) wrote, ‘while I am occupied, I am OK but as soon as I come inside, I start to feel loneliness’. As most felt unable to discuss loneliness, no approaches were enacted to process their feelings. That realisation brought some resignation, too: ‘I was lonely before Covid, I have been lonely during Covid, and I will be lonely after Covid’, wrote Jacko (LA).

In sum, data show linkages between Hochschild’s (1979, 2002) feeling rules (how participants thought they ‘should’ feel) and emotion work (attempts to manage their feelings) of loneliness. As Hochschild (1979) noted, emotion work (or management) does not equal success in changing an emotion – it merely entails trying to manage emotions. It is the effort that creates the work. Despite different personal and social contexts, all participants engaged in efforts to manage their feelings. Yet, their success seemed limited by the existential inequality of loneliness and other unequal and related circumstances, from devalued social status as frail older people to ageism (Therborn, 2013), as discussed next.

Loneliness in Later Life as Existential Inequality

Our findings on constraints and degradations of lonely older people expound the value of existential inequality to explore the relationality of loneliness (its personal/social and agentic/structural contexts) and its consequences on personhood. Loneliness shaped perceptions and experiences of personal dignity, autonomy and social recognition. Framing it as existential inequality teased out ‘unequal allocations’ of dignity, respect, autonomy and self-development and its processes (Therborn, 2013). Our participants lived loneliness as personal and social, although the personal seemed more internalised. But these internalisations appeared to rest on social scripts about being concurrently ‘very lonely’, frail and ‘too old’ in a society devaluing this constellation. Likewise, these internalisations seemed to materialise social meanings of loneliness as deficit and depreciation.

Prolonged loneliness in later life can, thus, be approached as a form of existential inequality, negatively affecting personhood. Personhood is socially situated, as exemplified by participants’ understandings of loneliness as ‘oldering’ – an ageing process depriving them of value and relationships. This deprived ‘lonely self’ is framed within various social dimensions, from perceived vulnerabilities (age, frailty, capability) to living settings and expectations (institutionalisation, living independently). Such deprivations further highlight personhood as something given or taken by others (Goffman, 1959; Mead, 2021). Feeling lonely in later life transpires as emotional pain, affecting selfhood through feelings of mattering and inclusion.

Specific later-life contexts added to how loneliness challenges personhood (Therborn, 2013). For instance, institutionalisation – and the Goffmanian sense of ‘total institutions’ (Goffman, 1961) – brought specific constraints to dignity and autonomy among care home participants. However, living alone entailed restrictions too, as illuminated by June, who told people she loved to live alone, but hated it. We found similarities regarding how feelings of loneliness were described in both living contexts and differences concerning how those contexts shaped meanings, reasons and responses to being lonely in later life – and the devaluative processes through which loneliness was experienced. Understanding those processes – not just their outcomes – is a critical sociological task.

Amid these deprivations and constraints, it was easier for participants to suffer in silence than disclose loneliness. This enlightens the interrelation between feeling rules and emotion work (Hochschild, 1979) and its existential outcomes (Therborn, 2013). Admitting to loneliness is admitting to social failure and being burdensome, helping explain the shame reported by participants and the concealment they deemed necessary. As noted by Scheff (2003: 254), shame anticipates negative judgements and ‘signal[s] threat to the social bond’, underlining the weight of social valuation/validation of personhood (Therborn, 2013). These valuations/validations link to norms and ideals around sociability in western late modernity (Franklin et al., 2019) praising the social butterfly and the networked self (Hookway et al., 2019). Yet, silencing loneliness had harmful effects (suicidal ideation, withdrawal), influencing participants’ responses to loneliness – and their success, or lack thereof. While all engaged in management strategies, their efficacy seemed inhibited by prevailing social conditions and self-presentation efforts. Self-presentation can both assist and limit loneliness management. On one hand, participants suffered in silence to uphold a desirable self, which meant not having support to process or lessen their loneliness. On the other, when some disclosed loneliness, they were dismissed, confirming it is a stigmatising condition (Goffman, 1963) compromising their socially embedded sense of personhood. Inadvertently, these strategies appeared to enhance the existential inequality of loneliness.

Of the mechanisms that produce/reproduce the existential inequality (Therborn, 2013) of loneliness, our data suggest distanciation, exclusion and hierarchisation. Distanciation was visible in how being lonely was perceived as failure, rendering participants as ‘losing’ or ‘falling behind’ (Therborn, 2013). Exclusion was seen in how they felt and were responded to when disclosing loneliness, and in the constant mediation between feeling rules and emotion work to avoid stigmatisation. Hierarchisation was observed in what participants identified as socially valuable, from non-frailty to individualisation, leading to their exclusion in a hierarchical system exalting hyper-sociability, youth, ablement and productivity. These mechanisms seemed reproduced by internalisation and management strategies like loneliness concealment. Despite distinct contexts, the devalued social status of frail older people and living settings restricting opportunities for social connectedness (i.e. meaningful connections) heightened loneliness as a form of existential inequality in later life. Findings showed structural dimensions – like ageing-related perceptions and experiences in specific living arrangements – can reinforce devaluation processes that lead to and compound loneliness as inequality.

Participants’ perceptions and lived experiences of loneliness, ageing and frailty – and the assemblage of stigmas predicating it – exemplify how social status can be a root of existential inequality (Therborn, 2013: 50). Being old and frail does not mean being lonely. Yet, being lonely while old, frail and living in restrictive settings seems to foster contexts of devaluation and inequality (e.g. external/internal ageism, ableism). As a result, our study illustrates how loneliness – and its emotional and existential despair – violates human dignity, denying social connectedness and belonging, but also capabilities to further enact them.

Conceptualising loneliness as existential inequality stresses the links between personal/social and agentic/structural, while not obscuring power dynamics and devaluation processes. It contributes an encompassing lens to understand how loneliness is bound to emotional experiences afflicting personhood within unequal social circumstances. Such a lens also facilitates bridging perspectives on personhood, like symbolic interactionism and the sociology of emotion, merging micro- and macro-level insights. Goffman’s work on self-presentation and Hochschild’s on emotion helped capture interactions and feelings, complementing an exploration of loneliness as existential inequality among vulnerable groups of older people. Our rich interview, ethnographic and diary data stressed the multifacetedness of loneliness. Through the in-depth – albeit ‘messier’ – lens of qualitative research, the linkages between loneliness and inequalities became visible in complex ways. We found an assemblage of stigmas adding to loneliness as a marginalisation process/practice – and saw multiple later-life contexts reinforcing the existential inequality of loneliness in ways hard to disentangle. Approaching loneliness as existential inequality does not obscure this complexity; rather, it recognises the agentic and structural entanglements of devaluation and its outcomes on personhood.

Although less visible and harder to capture than other inequality types, existential inequality advances loneliness as a consequential affront to personhood. It reminds us that inequality is a ‘socio-cultural order’ diminishing individuals’ capacities to fully operate as valued social beings (Therborn, 2013: 1). Existential inequality sends and/or receives impacts from resource inequality (Therborn, 2013), which was reflected in how loneliness was shaped by and influenced experiences of institutionalisation and ageing with frailty, producing unequal means to act. Our samples were heterogeneous, encompassing older people of different ages, genders and socio-cultural backgrounds. But the intersecting experiences of being lonely while old, frail and institutionalised or living alone offered shared understandings of loneliness and its impact on personhood. Our data revealed limited qualitative variations regarding other categories associated with resource inequality, like gender or socio-cultural background, possibly due to our study’s nature and scope. Despite the different socio-economic statuses of the care homes/residential areas, we did not find salient dissimilarities in meanings, management and outcomes of loneliness. Gender differences were also not striking in participants’ accounts of loneliness, supporting survey research demonstrating that gender does not necessarily predict later-life loneliness (Hawkley et al., 2022). Bob mentioned being a lonely ‘man’ and Lisa a ‘lonely woman’, suggesting gendered self-presentation; yet, we did not find deeper linkages between gender and loneliness in our data (Franklin et al., 2019). Cultural background did not seem to provide major differences either, perhaps because our study was conducted in English and did not target specific cultural groups and analytical dimensions. ⁵ This does not mean that diverse backgrounds and related potential resource inequalities among participants were irrelevant; rather, that they appeared to shape processes differently, even if leading to analogous experiences of prolonged loneliness as existential inequality. Finally, our data suggest links with vital inequality, too: loneliness affects health, but pre-existing health issues also seem to contribute to loneliness as existential inequality.

Conclusion

Approaching loneliness as existential inequality provides sociological insights into the social nature of loneliness in later life. This conceptualisation expanded our relational perspective, deepening understandings of vulnerable groups to loneliness and how that vulnerability is situated within micro- and macro-level devaluation processes. By emphasising social contexts without neglecting agency and personhood, we illuminated circumstances influencing how older people living alone or in care/nursing homes live through loneliness and its outcomes. This approach also mapped the stigmas transversing loneliness, ageing and frailty.

Recognising this assemblage of personal/social and agentic/structural dimensions can help refine interventions to tackle loneliness, often limited by individualistic or ‘one-size-fits-all’ models (Barbosa Neves et al., 2023). Situating loneliness as existential inequality – a social process denying equality of personhood – offers a policy-oriented framework to identify relational dimensions and outline equalisation mechanisms like de-stigmatisation (Therborn, 2013). Having opportunities for social connectedness is a human need and right to combat prolonged loneliness and related marginalisation.

We applied existential inequality to loneliness in later-life contexts, but loneliness is not universal among older people. Loneliness as existential inequality can be applied to other contexts and life course stages. Additionally, loneliness can result from other inequalities, including different forms of existential inequality. Our qualitative design precludes causal conclusions, instead offering ideas for possible associations and directions.

As with other sensitive topics, researchers must confront the impact of studying loneliness. For many participants, we provided the first outlet where they felt safe to share – and admit – loneliness on their terms, generating relief and sadness. Diarists wrote about their gratitude to us and the ‘therapeutic’ value of communicating loneliness, but also about the emotional load it entailed. Likewise, we must recognise the consequences of meaningful exchanges with researchers that cease with a study’s completion. For Therborn (2013), sociologists have a crucial role in examining inequalities and advancing equalisation mechanisms. The same is needed in how we study loneliness (see also Neves et al., 2023c), so policy and responses do not simplify or pathologise the phenomenon – and so research does not accentuate ‘personal troubles’ or social devaluation.

We would like to thank participants and care home staff, as well as local councils that assisted us with recruitment. A special word of gratitude to Monash City Council, namely to Sallenna Skye and Mary Martin. We are also grateful to Dr David Cólon-Cabrera and Shivika Sharma for their support with the diaries project. In addition, we are indebted to Dr Geoffrey Mead for comments on earlier drafts of this article. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive feedback.

Notes

1. ‘Existential loneliness’ (loneliness type) and ‘existential inequality’ are unrelated concepts. 2. This comes from Durkheim, for whom individual rights’ inviolability became society’s paradoxical glue (Goffman, 1959: 487). 3. Citizens could leave their homes for work/study that could not be done from home, medical care/caregiving, food/essential shopping and exercising. 4. Mills’s (1959) ‘personal troubles’ convey personal/private challenges that, although seem individualised, are often ‘public troubles’, too. 5. One participant diarised in Portuguese, which was translated by the first author, who speaks Portuguese.

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