The world has become accustomed to concerns about the male loneliness epidemic. But research suggests women are just as lonely
No one would think of Sasha* as lonely, least of all Sasha herself. The 38-year-old from Sydney has close and longstanding friendships, proactively keeps in touch and makes plans, and is engaged with her local community.
“All those things that you read about, about why men might be lonely – they don’t maintain one-on-one friendships, or they’re not good at reaching out, or their conversations aren’t deep and meaningful – none of those issues apply to me,” she says. “I’m a very socially connected person.”
Yet Sasha often felt lonely during her first year of motherhood, even when she was surrounded by other people. (All case studies’ names have been changed.) She attributes it now to the intensity of the experience. “It’s the identity shift of your first child, having no idea of what you’re doing, learning on the fly … You feel alone.”
We’re living through a global crisis of loneliness, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring it a priority for public health, but it’s hard to miss that the coverage and conversation has been overwhelmingly focused on men.
Global Google searches for “male loneliness” spiked suddenly in mid-2023, and have since seen frequent surges; interest in “female loneliness”, meanwhile, has remained a trickle.
In 2024, the UK government commissioned research on loneliness in boys and young men, even though – as the final report acknowledged – girls and women were more likely to report feeling chronically lonely. (Paradoxically, researchers suggested this was further evidence of the crisis in men, because they were less likely to speak up and seek help.)
In the media, it has been conceived as its own specific issue: “The male loneliness epidemic.”
“When I tell people that I study loneliness, sometimes they ask, ‘Oh, men’s loneliness?’” says Michelle Lim, a principal research fellow at the University of Sydney, chief executive of Australia’s Ending Loneliness Together campaign and an adviser to the WHO. “I have to say, ‘No, no – everyone’s loneliness.’”
From the relative lack of attention on women and girls, you might assume they’re doing fine, or at least better than men and boys. In fact, studies consistently show similar prevalence between genders. “There’s not really any difference … They’re equally both lonely,” Lim says.
Comparisons of men and women’s loneliness produce mixed, but insignificant results. Meanwhile, a recent systematic review of the current literature on loneliness among men in the US concluded that evidence of a “widespread epidemic … is absent”.
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So why do we have the impression that men are especially or uniquely struggling, and why don’t we hear about the “female loneliness epidemic”? In part it reflects a broader misunderstanding, says Lim: “We do see this confusion about what loneliness is.”
Loneliness is defined as the sense that your social relationships are somehow lacking in quality, quantity or both. Social isolation – with which loneliness is often confused or conflated – is more objective, referring to an absence of connection.
Data tends to show that men are more socially isolated than women, meaning “they have fewer people they talk to”, Lim says. Because men also tend to value physical presence and “shoulder-to-shoulder” socialising above emotional intimacy and disclosure, “the assumption is that they are more lonely”, Lim goes on – but that is not necessarily the case, if they are satisfied with those interactions.
Women tend to be more connected, “but they might feel lonely within relationships”, she says. That might indicate interpersonal ambivalence or conflict, but it could also stem from feeling isolated and alone in their individual experience.
View image in fullscreenWomen can feel lonely within friendships and relationships, says academic and loneliness expert Michelle Lim. Photograph: Goodboy Picture Company/Getty Images‘A very gendered experience’
Women are more likely to be carers than men are, they earn less on average, are less financially secure and are more vulnerable to adverse life events such as redundancy and divorce. “In many ways, they’re more socially disadvantaged, and that, we know, actually does predispose people to more loneliness,” Lim says. “It’s an equity issue.”
This became clear early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when loneliness started to gain more academic and media attention. Though both men and women reported feeling more lonely, the rise in women was much larger, which experts attributed to their increased workload, such as overseeing children’s schooling.
Spending more time on housework and caregiving not only means women have less time and ability to invest in their social connections; there is also likely to be the added loneliness of shouldering the burden, says Manuela Barreto, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the University of Exeter in the UK. “It’s a very gendered experience.”
Research has found that life transitions, such as becoming a parent, can promote loneliness, but the particular drivers likely differ for men and women, reflecting their different expectations and experiences.
Barreto suggests women are often more affected by children growing up and leaving the family nest, for example, due to the expectation or reality that “being a mother is much more central for women than being a father is for men”.
Menstrual health is another particular – and frequently underestimated – factor in women’s loneliness. A 2022 Japanese study found an association between loneliness and severe premenstrual symptoms in teenage girls. Regular pain can promote loneliness “in a very practical way”, Barreto points out, by preventing women from being fully present with others or even socialising at all.
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That was the case for Sasha. She has endometriosis and spent two “very difficult years” trying for a baby through multiple miscarriages and ultimately IVF. “That was the first time in my life that I had felt lonely,” she says.
Miscarriage in particular, Sasha recalls as “the loneliest of experiences”, causing her to feel apart from her loved ones and withdraw socially. “It’s a type of grief that is really difficult for people who haven’t been through it to understand.”
By the time she gave birth to her daughter, Sasha was “physically and emotionally exhausted”. The shock of new motherhood – far from the easy, beatific state she’d expected – deepened her sense of alienation and ambivalence. “Particularly having a much-wanted baby you’ve really fought for, you think, ‘I’m not entitled to feel anything except joy,’” she says.
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Even her partner could not relate, despite his best efforts. “He’s very involved but … my experience was very different to his,” Sasha says. “He was still going to work; his life hadn’t changed to the same degree.”
View image in fullscreenNew motherhood can deepen women’s sense of alienation. Photograph: d3sign/Getty Images‘Like a feeling of panic’
Loneliness can also spring from self-comparison and feeling yourself to have deviated from the expected or accepted path – itself frequently gendered. For Laura*, 41, from Auckland, loneliness is “almost like a feeling of panic”.
She recalls going for dinner with a group of school friends and realising midway through that they’d spoken exclusively about their children. Laura was the only non-parent among them.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear about their families, she says, and there was no deliberate effort to exclude her. “It was a simultaneous feeling that no one was particularly interested in what might be going on for me in my life, and also feeling shut out from this experience.”
Laura emphasises that she doesn’t feel lonely often. “It comes and goes, and is very much dependent on mood, what’s happening at work, who’s in my general orbit, the weather – all those factors that I think also affect mental health more generally.”
But her experience of loneliness is tied up with her life circumstances. Laura is single and lives alone, while many of her close friends have families or live far away. “I am in a very different life stage,” she says.
Laura works hard to expand her network and socialise solo, but it feels effortful; she misses the easy, unthinking companionship of a romantic partner or even flatmates. Not having “that default unit” – someone to commiserate or celebrate with and just share in her day-to-day experience – “comes with a sense of doing everything alone”, Laura says.
Sexist stereotypes add another layer of ambivalence, she suggests. “A man alone is self-sufficient, taking this bold, brave step, versus a woman living alone is a failure, left on the shelf … a weird, unlovable spinster.” It’s not that she believes this of herself, Laura adds. “It’s more my concern that that’s how other people will perceive me.”
Men have their own gendered drivers of loneliness, not least that expectation of being stoic and self-sufficient. In fact, that might be driving the attention on the male “epidemic”, Barreto suggests: because, stereotypically, men are supposed to be strong and unfeeling – the fact they might feel lonely is considered surprising and newsworthy.
While lonely women tend to internalise the problem and “get on with it”, Barreto goes on, the potential consequences of loneliness, for men, “can be a lot more severe”. Globally, rates of suicide are higher for males than females.
But there is not necessarily a straightforward association between a man feeling lonely and posing a threat to himself or others. The concept of a “male loneliness epidemic” also suggests a single, sweeping event, rather than a highly individual process. “Loneliness is a subjective experience, so it needs to be assessed in that way,” Barreto says.
Instead of comparing male and female loneliness, we need to augment our understanding of both, and non-binary individuals with them, she says. “We need to look at gendered life experiences, and link those to how they are hindering or facilitating our social connection … What is making men lonely, and what is making women lonely?”
‘It felt shameful’: the profound loneliness of modern motherhoodRead moreBy engaging with the specificity of those (and other) experiences, we may learn how to protect against loneliness and intervene effectively, Barreto says.
Already the data points to a productive path forward. A 2022 study of 30 countries found those that had higher levels of gender equality had lower rates of loneliness, for both men and women; the researchers hypothesised that equality was more conducive “to high-quality, close relationships”.