Feelings of Loneliness of Educationally Active Women in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic Experience

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to: 1. determine changes in levels of loneliness among educationally active women before and during the COVID19 pandemic; 2. examine the relationship between social support, life satisfaction, experience of transformative learning manifestations, and experience of social and emotional loneliness among younger (< 30 years) and older (30+) women. Methods: Data were collected using an online test method. The research sample consists of 258 educationally active women living in northwestern Poland. Age of women surveyed: from 19 to 87 years. Findings: During the pandemic, the emotional loneliness of the surveyed women increased. The level of social loneliness remained unchanged. Social support is a protective factor. The level of loneliness correlates negatively with life satisfaction and positively with perceiving in oneself manifestations of transformative learning. The latter regularity applies only to younger women.