SOLO – Living Alone, Loneliness, and Social Isolation Over Time and Across Space

Principal Investigator: Maria Sironi

Funder: Italian Research Ministry (MUR) - call FIS 3 SH7 Advanced Grant - Project Code FIS-2024-06527

Objectives:

The rise in living alone has been one of the major demographic shifts in recent decades across societies. This trend could be exacerbated in the future by the demographic processes that high-income countries are facing as decreasing fertility, increasing life expectancy, and ageing.

SOLO will investigate the interconnections between living alone, loneliness, and social isolation, addressing the following objectives:

• systematically analyse past trends and model future projections of living alone, loneliness, and social isolation in post-industrial contemporary societies in Europe and the United States across all age groups;
• study the dependencies between living alone, loneliness, and social isolation;
• investigate the association between isolation trajectories and physical and mental health outcomes across the life-course.

SOLO will adopt a cross-national comparative perspective, and combine high-quality macro and micro-level data, advanced methodologies and conceptual approaches previously unused for the study of isolation. The project will leverage on a multidisciplinary approach and advanced methodological techniques to enhance the understanding of individual wellbeing within complex societies.

Duration: TBD