Page 23 - IJPS-11-2

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Typologies of living alone and loneliness and their

correlates among community-dwelling older
adults: Results from the Chinese Longitudinal

Healthy Longevity Survey

Fang Yang * , Xiang Zhou 1 , and Huiguang Wang 2
1
1 Department of Social Work, School of Sociology and Political Science, Shanghai University,
Baoshan District, Shanghai, China
2 Department of Social Work, School of Government, Henan University of Economics and Law,
Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China

Abstract
This study examined typology among Chinese older adults based on living alone and
loneliness and their correlates and the urban–rural difference between them. Data
were derived from the 2018 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity
Survey. Four subgroups were generated – living alone and feeling lonely, living alone
Corresponding author: but not lonely, not living alone but feeling lonely, and neither living alone nor feeling
Fang Yang lonely. Multinomial logistic models were used. Among the 14,469 respondents, 7.84%
(yangfang@shu.edu.cn) lived alone and felt lonely, 8.69% lived alone but did not feel lonely, 20.13% did not
Citation: Yang, F., Zhou, X., & live alone but felt lonely, and 63.34% neither lived alone nor felt lonely. Compared
Wang, H. (2025). Typologies of with those who neither lived alone nor were lonely, older adults who lived alone and
living alone and loneliness and
their correlates among community- were lonely were characterized by low socioeconomic status and poor health, as well
dwelling older adults: Results from as a lack of family support and participation in individual activities. Older adults who
the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy lived alone but were not lonely generally reported good health. In contrast, older
Longevity Survey. International
Journal of Population Studies, adults who were not living alone but were lonely generally reported poor health and
11(2): 17-29. lacked community old-age care services and participation in individual activities.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.4184 The results indicate that investigating living alone and loneliness in tandem could
Received: July 10, 2024 provide a better understanding of the social circumstances of older adults within
each subgroup and help provide tailored services for each subgroup.
Revised: September 23, 2024
Accepted: October 17, 2024
Keywords: Living alone; Loneliness; Typology; China Longitudinal Healthy Longevity
Published online: November 18, Survey
2024
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 1. Introduction
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, In recent years, loneliness in older adults has become an increasingly notable global
provided the original work is public health concern with a variety of negative consequences, such as mortality
properly cited. (Takagi & Saito, 2020), depression (Schiller et al., 2023), poor self-rated health
Publisher’s Note: AccScience (Phillips et al., 2023), and cognitive impairment (Foong et al., 2018). Moreover,
Publishing remains neutral with social distancing and the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic have worsened
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional the situation, with an increase in the prevalence of loneliness among older adults
affiliations. (Hajek & König, 2021; Wu, 2020). Due to the dramatic societal transitions in China

Volume 11 Issue 2 (2025) 17 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.4184