Kwetsbaar en eenzaam

An Introduction to Silver Empowerment

“…This concurs with the scientific literature which finds that people with a migration background have higher loneliness levels than people without a migration background (De Witte & Van Regenmortel, 2021), and that this is not only attributable to demographic, socio-economic and health factors (Wu & Penning, 2015). Indeed, higher loneliness levels of first-generation immigrants can be explained by migration-related factors that play into loneliness and general resilience: leaving former relationships behind, experiencing difficulties integrating into a new culture (Van Campen et al, 2018), cultural dislocation, acculturative processes (e.g. learning a new language) and loss of social status (Keung Wong et al, 2007).…”

“…With respect to the relation between loneliness and health, we observe that older persons with better health (i.e. self-perceived health, number of mobility limitations, or depression) and a higher level of cognitive functioning are less lonely, which corresponds to other research (Aroonsrimorakot et al, 2019;Van Campen et al, 2018). Also, persons with a higher net household income are less lonely (with the exception of the tenth decile) than those with a lower income, which is in accordance with Vozikaki et al's (2018) research.…”

“…In this regard, research is not conclusive. On the one hand, older persons are found to be more often confronted with lacking intimate attachment figures (Vozikaki et al, 2018), more dependency and a loss of mastery and income (Van Campen et al, 2018). On the other hand, older persons appear to have a lower risk of social loneliness (Wolfers et al, 2022), which could be explained by the socio-emotional selectivity theory, which states that older persons attach more importance to the quality of contacts and are more satisfied with their social relationships (Schoenmakers et al, 2012).…”