Arpino, BrunoMair, Christine A.Quashie, Nekehia T.Antczak, Radoslaw2023-05-192023-05-192022Arpino B, Mair CA, Quashie NT, Antczak R. Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic—are unpartnered and childless older adults at higher risk?. Eur J Ageing. 2022;19(4):1327-38. DOI: 10.1007/s10433-022-00718-x1613-9372http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56911COVID-19 mitigation efforts had the potential to exacerbate loneliness among older adults, particularly for the unpartnered or childless, yet specific studies on loneliness among these groups during the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) collected before (October 2019–March 2020) and during the pandemic (June–August 2020), we examine two loneliness outcomes: (1) “have you felt lonely recently?” (both datasets) and (2) “have you felt lonelier than before the pandemic?” (2020), and examine differences by partnership and parenthood status. Before COVID-19, those who lacked one tie but had the other (unpartnered parents or partnered childless) were at highest loneliness risk. During COVID-19, unpartnered and childless—especially unpartnered—remain at higher risk for loneliness, entering loneliness, and not “exiting” loneliness. We discuss these findings in light of family norms and needs in pandemic and non-pandemic times and provide recommendations for future research.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10433-022-00718-xLonelinessPartnershipParenthoodCoronavirusSHAREinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess