Loneliness in Europe: Determinants, Risks and Interventions

This open-access volume accompanies the microdata release of the EU Loneliness Survey.

Loneliness, often referred to as the ’epidemic of the 21st century’, has emerged as a grave public health concern. For years, a lack of comprehensive European cross-national data hindered a thorough examination of this issue. In 2022, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre conducted the inaugural EU Loneliness Survey, covering around 30,000 individuals in 27 European nations. The book sheds light on who is most affected by loneliness, identifies contributing experiences and behaviours, addresses the stigmatisation of loneliness and discusses its societal impact. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of interventions to combat loneliness. Finally, the book discusses the challenges of survey design and offers valuable insights for the monitoring of loneliness in Europe in the future. This makes the book a must-read for scholars and academics interested in population economics, public health and social well-being.

Sylke Viola Schnepf is working in the Competence Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation and on the cross-national research project examining aspects of loneliness and fairness at the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. She is a member of the JRC Scientific Committee. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Hamburg, Germany. Previously, Schnepf has worked as a consultant for the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, in Florence, Italy, and as an associate professor in Social Statistics at the University of Southampton, UK. She provides scientific expertise and methodological support for counterfactual impact evaluation. Her main methodological research interests focus on impact evaluation methods and survey design. Schnepf examines aspects of fairness focusing mainly on education and climate change policies.

Béatrice d’Hombres is a coordinator of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center(JRC) projects on fairness and loneliness in Ispra, Italy. As a researcher and policy analyst, she has worked for more than 15 years in the JRC’s Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluation Unit. Her main research topics are labor and education economics, applied econometrics and statistics, health economics, and economic development. D’Hombres holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Auvergne, France.

Caterina Mauri is a researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Southern Denmark. Her research focuses on loneliness and mental well-being, fairness and inequality perceptions, regional and urban economics, the labor market for artists and creatives, art appreciation and individual/household art consumption, and innovation and technology in history. At the JRC, Mauri works on the topics of loneliness, inequality, and fairness perceptions as well as on thecultural economy and the development of indicators. She is part of the project management team for the ’Loneliness in the European Union’ project, in collaboration with the directorate-general for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion.