Report

Lonely nation

This report from UK think tank the Centre for Social Justice offers a new perspective on loneliness and social isolation.

Loneliness in Britain is worse than ever. During 2023 a quarter of the population felt regularly lonely, a figure that has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the UK leading the way in launching the world’s first loneliness strategy, the problem continues to get worse.

Polling conducted for this report has revealed that seven in ten of 18–24-year-olds say they feel lonely. 29 per cent say they feel a fundamental separateness from other people and the wider world. These figures are worrying. They point to a wider breakdown in the mental health, resilience and sense of hope felt by people today.

This report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) offers a new perspective on loneliness and social isolation. Lonely Nation offers a renewed framework for understanding the crisis of loneliness and isolation facing our communities. Critically, instead of reducing loneliness to a product of individual experience, stigma or a psychological condition, the CSJ root the current loneliness epidemic in its broader cultural context. It does this primarily in understanding that loneliness is one product of a crisis in family stability across Britain.

Lonely Nation finds that British families are uniquely fragile and complex and that decades of family breakdown have contributed to the rise of loneliness and isolation today. It considers subjects that others have shied away from, including asking if the decline in marriage has contributed to a rise in loneliness.

The CSJ make a convincing case that family must be put at the heart of a refreshed strategy for tackling loneliness.