Loneliness after divorce: A cohort comparison among 60-78-year old Dutch people. Unpublished manuscript

Divorce increases the risk of loneliness. With divorce increasingly becoming a normal life event, soci-etal changes are now challenging this idea as regards to current cohorts. We hypothesize that the rela-tive strong feelings of loneliness among divorcees, compared with married people, has diminished over time. Using 1992, 2002, and 2012 data sets of 54–65-year-old people, we examine the impact of divorce on loneliness over 20 years. We compare those who are divorced or remarried to people mar-ried for the first time, and differentiate the supportiveness of the partnership. The results show that for both emotional and social loneliness, divorcees were lonelier than respondents in their first mar-riage; remarried divorces were socially lonelier than respondents in their first marriage. Respondents with a supportive partnership were less emotionally and socially lonely than respondents without a partnership or with a less supportive partnership. The main finding is that, compared with 1992, the divorcees are less socially lonely in 2002, with a smaller and non-significant further decrease in loneli-ness in 2012. This suggests that the social position of divorcees has been improved over the past two decades