2024 is set to be the loneliest year on record for people in the UK, and the situation may be similar in Australia.¹ UK government figures predict nearly one in seven will be living alone by 2039.² By that same time, a quarter of the population will be 65+, creating its own set of challenges.³
The wider breakdown in community life ties many of these problems together: older people are increasingly reliant on government rather than family and local community support to help them in later life. The number of people living alone is closely linked to the rise in loneliness, as people lack everyday companionship found in the home, which also contributes to the West’s housing shortage, particularly in the UK and Australia.
Japan suffers from an epidemic of isolation so acute it carries a name: kodokushi, or ‘lonely deaths’, where a corpse might go undiscovered for months in an unvisited apartment, before the smell finally alerts someone.
Meanwhile in policy and popular culture, loneliness receives more attention than ever before. The UK made international headlines when it appointed the first Minister for Loneliness in 2018. The US Surgeon-General’s seminal report on ‘Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation’ in 2023 examined the problem from a public health perspective, drawing attention to the impact of loneliness on outcomes from mental health to lifetime earnings, academic achievement, happiness and more.
