Loneliness for men over 50 set to rise to 1m in next 15 years

15th October 2014

We were saddened to hear the government figures released this week that in the next 15 years the number of men over the age of 50 suffering from severe loneliness in England will increase to more than 1 million.

The study stated a shocking more than 700,000 older men feeling a high degree of loneliness. This is only set to increase as the population of older men living alone is predicted to grow by 65% to 1.5 million by 2030. Independent Age said that the impact of isolation will spread.

Those that are and will be most likely the hardest hit are men with low incomes with few qualifications, health problems and those that rent.

“This matters because loneliness is actually a health risk,” said Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age. “If you allow people to suffer from loneliness it has the equivalent impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is as big a risk as obesity.”

Some of the figures show:

• Nearly one in five older men admitted to having less than monthly contact with friends compared to one in eight for women
• More older men experience high levels of social isolation
• Almost a quarter of men over 50 have less than monthly contact with their children compared to just one in seven women
• Loneliness affects close to half of all men over 50

The findings are based on newly released data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a collaboration involving University College London, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, NatCen Social Research and Manchester University.

On Monday Independent Age will call on the government to tackle loneliness among retirees by providing pre-retirement advice on retaining and developing social networks and for local councils to step up efforts to identify lonely people.

Are you concerned or affected by this. Visit Independentage.org http://www.independentage.org/media/828364/isolation-the-emerging-crisis-for-older-men-report.pdf