Loneliness in Post-Socialist Countries in Eurasia: Partners and Children Save Millennials from Daunting Desolation?

Vytenis Juozas Deimantas , NIDI
Ausra Maslauskaite, Vytautas Magnus University

In modern societies, loneliness is assumed to be a challenge that is faced mostly by the elderly. However, certain age groups experience the long lasting impact of loneliness more than others. The rise of social media, living alone, and the unprecedented isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has left millennials lonelier than ever. Relying on partners and/or children to socialise has been often portrayed as one of the pathways in avoiding (or reducing) loneliness, yet in a generation that is less partnered and has fewer children than the previous one these channels may not be working the same way. Being lonely in post-socialist countries in Eurasia may exacerbate the loneliness millennials suffer from as these societies are often characterised by higher levels of loneliness than Western democracies. That is why in this paper we seek to identify a connection between loneliness and partnership and parenthood statuses and compare the connection between the regions (Commonwealth of Independent States and Baltic States) in the sample. To do so we employ the Generations and Gender Survey round 2 data collected in Belarus, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia and Kazakhstan as well as the Families and Inequalities Survey 2021 in Lithuania. We use multinomial logistic regression analysis to conclude that partnership rather than parenthood makes millennials less lonely.

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 Presented in Session 67. Flash session Social and Behavioral Determinants of Health, Wellbeing and Morbidity