Loneliness and Isolation of Old Adults in the Future Decades
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Institute
Loneliness and social isolation are related terms and they are often applied
interchangeably. However, they are distinct concepts that have different definitions,
interventions and health impacts. As our population continues aging and the older people are at
an increased risk for loneliness and isolation, this is a trend that is projected to increase over the
next years. Understanding the factors that lead to both loneliness and social isolation is critical to
understanding the measures that can be taken to reduce their prevalence among the aging
population.
As of the year 2014, it was estimated that 15% of the Americans which represents 48
million people were above 65 years old. It is now estimated that by the year 2030, this
population will have increased to more than 20% of all the Americans (Boss, Kang & Branson,
2015). The older adults continue being at more risks for social isolation and loneliness as their
social relations and contracts continue to shrink naturally as a result of the late-life events which
pertain to death, retirement, loss of mobility as well as ill health (Menec et al., 2019). In the
United States similar to other regions across the world, there has been shifting cultural norms.
These are responsible for increasingly leaving the older adults without the traditional support
systems such as adult children who live nearby (Courtin & Knapp, 2017). Over the past 30 years,
the support systems have continued declining and shrinking making the older adults to rely on
fewer confidantes. More to that, the cases of divorces have increased and the rates of remarriages
have also become fewer (Courtin & Knapp, 2017). On the other hand, it is found that the rates of
fertility continue dropping and they are projected be dropping as time goes by and in the future,
there will be an incidence whereby the baby boomers will lack family support as they grow old.
This implies that the rates of isolation among the older adults will continue increasing and there
is a high likelihood that even in the future, the social isolation factors that also contribute to
loneliness will be magnified (Leigh-Hunt et al., 2017).
As the society continue changing, these changes are highly likely to affect the
relationships that the old people have with the society (Ibrahim, Abolfathi Momtaz & Hamid,
2013). For instance, the continuous changes in the family patterns as well as the societal changes
mean that there will be other groups of people that will be subjected to loneliness today and in
the future as compared to a decade ago (Courtin & Knapp, 2017). This implies that the factors
that are associated with isolation and loneliness keep changing over time and it is most likely that
these factors will continue making life challenging for these older people now and in the future
(Ciolfi & Jimenez, 2017). There are key reasons that loneliness has become a critical issue
among the older people and will continue being so. For instance, in the current age of
globalization, and technological revolutions, much is changing and the world is not similar to
how it was some years ago. This means that there are some socio-demographic factors that are
still changing and in the future, they will still evolve (Dahlberg, Agahi & Lennartsson, 2018).
Issues to do with lower education levels, the marital status, poor health, genetic characteristics
and the gender are some reasons that people are increasingly becoming lonely (Ciolfi & Jimenez,
2017).