Loneliness at Older Ages in Japan: Lonely Life Expectancy and the Role of Social Isolation

Loneliness is the focus of growing media, policy, and research attention, but remains an understudied dimension of social inequality among demographers and other social scientists. This study examines the duration of exposure to loneliness at older ages in Japan, the world’s oldest country. Analyses conceptually and methodologically account for the related, but distinct, concept of social isolation. Combining life tables from the Human Mortality Database with individual data from the National Survey of Japanese Elderly, we used Sullivan’s method to calculate lonely life expectancy (LLE) and isolation-adjusted LLE by sex, region of residence, and educational attainment. LLE at age 60 was 2.4–2.7 years for Japanese men and 4.1–5.0 years among women. These sex differences became less pronounced after accounting for social isolation, especially family-related aspects of isolation. We found no clear regional or educational differences in (isolation-adjusted) LLE. In contrast to public perceptions of growing loneliness, we found that (isolation-adjusted) LLE is relatively short among older Japanese and has not increased over time.