Swader Christopher S, Moraru Andreea-Valentina
Department of Sociology, Lund University, Sandgatan 11, Hus G, 22100 Lund, Sweden.
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 Munich, Germany.
Kolner Z Soz Sozpsychol. 2023 May 4:1-28. doi: 10.1007/s11577-023-00883-6.
In Europe, individualist societies, in which people more highly value independence, have fewer people who are lonely. Yet these societies also have more people who live alone, a strong determinant of loneliness. Evidence suggests that some unrecognized societal-level resources or characteristics can explain this. We uncover multiple pathways toward a lower degree of loneliness among European societies using an ideal method for this purpose, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Using data from the 2014 wave of the European Social Survey and other sources, we analyzed loneliness outcomes among 26 European societies. Our findings suggest two necessary conditions for a low degree of loneliness: high internet access and high association participation. Further, three pathways are sufficient for achieving less loneliness at the societal level. Most societies that have less loneliness follow both the welfare support and cultural support pathways. The third path, commercial provision, is mutually exclusive with welfare support because the former requires a weak welfare state. The surest policy for building societies that have lower rates of loneliness includes the expansion of internet accessibility, the fostering of civil society through association participation and volunteering, and a welfare state that protects potentially vulnerable populations while funding opportunities for social interaction. This article further contributes methodologically by demonstrating "configurational robustness testing," a more comprehensive means to implement current best practices for fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis robustness testing.
在欧洲，个人主义社会中人们更看重独立性，孤独的人较少。然而，这些社会中独居的人也更多，而独居是导致孤独的一个重要因素。有证据表明，一些未被认识到的社会层面资源或特征可以解释这一现象。我们采用一种理想的方法——模糊集定性比较分析，揭示了欧洲社会中孤独程度较低的多种途径。利用2014年欧洲社会调查以及其他来源的数据，我们分析了26个欧洲社会的孤独状况。我们的研究结果表明，孤独程度较低有两个必要条件：高互联网接入率和高社团参与度。此外，有三条途径足以在社会层面实现较低的孤独感。大多数孤独感较低的社会同时遵循福利支持和文化支持途径。第三条途径，商业供给，与福利支持相互排斥，因为前者需要一个较弱的福利国家。建设孤独率较低的社会最可靠的政策包括扩大互联网接入、通过社团参与和志愿服务促进公民社会发展，以及建立一个在保护潜在弱势群体的同时为社会互动提供资金机会的福利国家。本文还在方法上做出了贡献，展示了“构型稳健性测试”，这是一种更全面的方法，用于实施模糊集定性比较分析稳健性测试的当前最佳实践。
