Loneliness in Australia 2008
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2008 Loneliness in Australia Paper No. 13 Housing and Community Research Unit Housing and Community Research Unit School of Sociology and Social Work Adrian Franklin, University of Tasmania School of Sociology and Social Work, Private Bag 17, Hobart, University of Tasmania Tas 7001, Australia T: 00 61 3 6226 7604 Bruce Tranter, F: 00 61 3 6226 2279 School of Sociology and Social Work, W: http://www.utas.edu.au/sociology/HACRU/ University of Tasmania Loneliness in Australia Paper No. 13 – 2008 Abstract Further to previous theoretical work on loneliness and Do our data suggest that loneliness is worsening in the condition of contemporary social bonds in ‘liquid Australia? Yes they do. Flood’s earlier (2006) study was modernity’, this paper reports on a new nationally based on the HILDA (Household, Income and Labour representative survey, carried out in 2007, which examined Dynamics in Australia) Survey from 2001. He found that 16 loneliness in contemporary Australia. The paper identifies per cent of both men and women aged 25 to 44 agreed with loneliness to be a potentially very serious and widespread the statement ‘I often feel lonely’. The nearest measure on problem with profound implications but it also highlights our survey relates to those who agree with the statement the most ‘at risk’ groups and the pattern of loneliness ‘How often do you personally experience loneliness in your across the life course. It strongly suggests that loneliness life’. In 2007, 23 per cent of women and 21 per cent of men has reached unprecedented levels and that it may have as aged 25 to 44 claimed to be lonely once a week or more much to do with reduced social connectivity and networks often. Another measure on our survey relates to those who as the quality of the social bonds themselves. The paradox agree with the statement ‘Loneliness has been a serious of contemporary loneliness is that our unswerving pursuit problem for me at times’, and one might imagine that of freedom means we are, at the same time, unwilling to this is a slightly stronger statement about loneliness than commit to the enduring and stable bonds we crave as lonely Flood’s. Even so, in 2007 34% of women and 33% of men people. While significant loneliness was evident among aged 25-44 agreed with this. Put another way, one third of most groups and ages the survey suggests that for men, both Australian men and women in the prime of life have particularly those who have separated from partnerships, experienced loneliness as a serious problem at times. Surely loneliness has been a more serious problem that is endured this is new. for longer periods as well as being a problem they are Sometimes you get so lonely, less able to deal with than women. For example, while Sometimes you get nowhere, separated women are only twice as likely as married I’ve drifted all over the world, women to experience loneliness as a serious problem, I’ve left every place. separated men are over thirteen times more likely to develop loneliness as a serious problem than married men. Please be mine, The fact that marriage seems to insulate people so well Share my life, against loneliness demonstrates how it may be the nature Stay with me, of the bond rather than relationships per se (their number Be my wife. and their frequency of interaction) that are important to David Bowie, Be My Wife - Low (1977) understand in studies of contemporary loneliness. The paper also reveals that Australia has an unusual profile of loneliness as measured across the life course: whereas Listen all you fools out there modern Western nations produces a shallow bowl-like Go on and love me I don’t care, curve where loneliness peaks in late adolescence/early Oh it’s lonely at the top adulthood and again in late old age, in Australia we have Randy Newman, Songbook Vol. 1 found a more dome-like curve where loneliness also peaks among those aged 25-45 (with a reprise among the over 80s). 2 Loneliness in Australia Paper No. 13 – 2008 1. Introduction In a previous paper (Franklin 2009) it was argued that The implication of this is not that new forms of relating previous ways of conceptualising and measuring loneliness to one another will substitute for previous forms but may not be consistent with Bauman’s diagnoses of that there will be an emotional short-fall in the quality contemporary social bonds, contemporary individualism of the new bonds, with the implication that we may be and the balancing act between freedom and loneliness. In lonelier. The previous paper (Franklin 2009) argued that a variety of works (Bauman 2000; 2003; 2005) the metaphor this makes perfect sense in theory but asked whether there of liquidity was applied to a wide variety of relationships are any signs of it emerging in studies of loneliness (which that once had a degree of solidity, continuity and reliability coincidentally have also begun to feature more in recent but which now act more like liquids. In this account, studies of the elderly, the middle aged and the young relationships, like liquids, no longer hold their shape in a (Andersson 1998, Flood 2005). way they once did; they tend to dissolve very easily and In this paper we will first review this argument in the light they have a very fragile and fluid composition; as with of the history of studies of loneliness. We conclude that in liquids, all attempts to hold or constrain them are prone to the past referred to by Bauman as solid modernity studies leakage and spills. Like liquids, they have a tendency to of loneliness were predominantly concerned not with the flow around obstacles intended to confine or constrict them. quality of interpersonal relationships but the breakdown Unable to hold their shape for very long they no longer of community and traditional forms of connectivity and extend the same supportive or ontologically secure basis network. As such loneliness was assessed using proxy for social well-being. Bauman has identified the paradox of measures, particularly the density and frequency of social new demands for freedom and choice (especially to avoid connections, the types of social support they delivered relationship commitment) existing alongside apparent new and the emotional consequences of social isolation. We opportunities for connectivity (especially through new note that even recent studies have continued to use these technologies). Rather than comprising a new transition proxy loneliness scales, often justified by sound arguments. into the era of ‘liquid modernity’ where social bonds get It is widely known that using the word loneliness in a new lease on life, Bauman points to an emotional gap questions tends to produce underreporting owing to the opening up where deep-rooted emotional needs for social (not inconsiderable) social stigma of admitting loneliness bonds cannot be supplied by even the most energetic (de Jong Gierveld 1998:74). Interestingly, in her study of application of networking techniques and technologies. a new Australian suburb in the early 1980s, for example, He argues that unlike relationships based on the enduring Lyn Richards (1991: 254) perceived a very widespread bond, contemporary forms of networking and electronic experience of loneliness in Green Views and despite good connectivity are ephemeral, lasting only for the duration response rates in other data gathering exercises, nobody of an encounter (they disappear when we go off line) or as came forward from her call in the Resident’s Association long as our ‘connections’ continue to connect with us. Our Newsletter to talk to her about their loneliness. However, sense of being connected relies on an increased effort to the problem with not referring explicitly to respondent’s connect but this only ever generates an ‘until further notice’ experience of loneliness in surveys of socialability is that quality. one is never sure whether even those with very small Unlike ‘relations’, ‘kinship’, ‘partnerships’ and similar networks, frequency of interaction and degree of support notions that make salient the mutual engagement are actually lonely. Equally, we now know that dense, while excluding or passing over in silence its opposite, frequent and even intimate relationships do not necessarily the disengagement, ‘network’ stands for a matrix for insulate people from loneliness (Kiley 1989). To a degree simultaneously connecting and disconnecting; networks are the various loneliness studies are a sensitive means of unimaginable without both activities being simultaneously triangulating a variety of direct and indirect factors that enabled. In a network, connecting and disconnecting often combine to produce loneliness. However, while are equally legitimate choices, enjoy the same status and they have proved very useful they tend to assume that carry the same importance. No point in asking which of relationships have a solidity and an evenness of emotional the two complementary activities constitutes ‘the essence’ intensity that Bauman is now questioning. of network! ‘Network’ suggests moments of ‘being in At the risk of a degree of under-reporting therefore it was touch’ interspersed with periods of roaming. In a network, decided that to embark on a series of empirical exercises connections are entered into on demand and can be broken that would be based on self-reported loneliness solicited at will’ (Bauman 2003: xii). from questions that use the word loneliness directly. 3 Loneliness in Australia Paper No. 13 – 2008 2. Loneliness and Australia In Australia loneliness has recently become seen as a major This paper reports the first of a studies in which basic data problem. Lindsay Tanner, MP for Melbourne describes it about perceptions of loneliness in Australia was sought. as a ‘crisis of loneliness’1 citing significance proportions of We asked whether people were ever lonely and for how the elderly and young as at risk.