Abstract
Despite the potential role that Internet use may have played in alleviating older people’s loneliness during the Covid-19 outbreak, there is still a shortage of (quantitative) research on this topic. This study contributes to filling in this gap by investigating the relationship between Internet use and old-age loneliness across Europe from a gendered perspective, adopting a comprehensive approach that considers individual and contextual-level factors as possible drivers of old-age loneliness during pandemics. We adopt multilevel modeling, to analyze data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (Wave 8 and Corona Survey 1), augmented with data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and the Eurostat Digital Agenda Scoreboard Key Indicators. Although the bivariate analysis has documented that Internet use is a protective factor against loneliness both for older men and women, the multilevel analysis has shown that the association between these two variables is spurious. Interestingly, the mechanisms at play are different. For older men, individual and country-level variables are the main drivers of the spurious relationship whereas for older women, this relationship may be driven by individual-level factors that remain unaccounted for in our modeling strategy (e.g., variation in attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions towards the Internet, reflecting differences in cross-country social and cultural norms).
Presenters
Emanuela SalaReader, Università di Milano Bicocca, Italy Federica Cretazzo
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, Italy Daniele Zaccaria
Researcher, Centre of Competence on Ageing - Business Economics, Health, and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
COVID-19, EUROSTAT, INTERNET, LONELINESS, OLDER ADULTS, OxCGRT, SHARE
