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Worry about debt is related to social loneliness in older adults in the Netherlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

Cäzilia Loibl Open the ORCID record for Cäzilia Loibl [Opens in a new window] ,
Madeleine A. Drost ,
Martijn Huisman ,
Bianca Suanet ,
Wändi Bruine de Bruin ,
Simon McNair  and
Barbara Summers
Cäzilia Loibl*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Madeleine A. Drost
Affiliation:
Department of Human Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Martijn Huisman
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Bianca Suanet
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Wändi Bruine de Bruin
Affiliation:
Sol Price School of Public Policy, Dornsife Department of Psychology, Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, and Center for Economic and Social Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Simon McNair
Affiliation:
Behavioural Insights Team, London, UK
Barbara Summers
Affiliation:
Centre for Decision Research, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: loibl.3@osu.edu
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Abstract

The amount of financial debt held by older adults has grown substantially over the past two decades in Europe. This study examines the association of objective and subjective debt burden with social and emotional loneliness among 1,606 older adults in the Netherlands. Objective debt burden is based on financial terms, such as debt-to-income ratio; whereas subjective debt burden measures the psychological distress caused by financial debt. Data are from the 2015/2016 wave of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. First, we use means-comparison tests to examine whether older adults who experience social and emotional loneliness differ from older adults who do not experience loneliness regarding their subjective and objective debt burdens. Subsequently, using linear regression models we address two questions: whether social loneliness and emotional loneliness are associated with objective and subjective debt burden; and whether social participation, social network size, anxiety and depression mediate these relationships. We find that subjective debt burden (i.e. the worry related to debt) is a significant predictor of social loneliness, above and beyond the role of social and psychological measures. Objective debt burden, in contrast, is unrelated to social and emotional loneliness. Social participation, social network size, anxiety and depression do not mediate the debt-burden-to-loneliness relationships. The results point to the importance of subjective debt burden in understanding social loneliness and designing interventions.

Keywords

social lonelinessemotional lonelinesssubjective debt burdenobjective debt burdensocial networkdepressionanxiety
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 42 , Issue 12 , December 2022 , pp. 2869 - 2891
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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