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Increasingly, loneliness is being recognised as a serious problem with detrimental effects on health, as well as on social cohesion and community trust. To effectively tackle this complex issue, a clear understanding of the phenomenon and its main drivers is needed. Over years of scientific research on loneliness, many potential risk factors have emerged and been tested empirically. This narrative review of 109 studies provides a concise summary of empirical evidence on the main potential risk factors for loneliness and presents an additional section dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the very large number of existing studies, emphasis is placed on recent meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews as well as longitudinal studies. Similarly, given the large number of possible risk factors for loneliness, which may differ based on the geographical and cultural context, this review focuses on studies from Europe and North America. The results show that demographic factors often correlate with loneliness, but in many cases the link becomes negligible when controlling for other factors. Often, physical and mental health problems are found to be associated with loneliness, and so are some psychological factors, such as neuroticism or extroversion. Loneliness also depends on the environment in which one lives, and possibly the broader socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts. Nevertheless, the review shows that ultimately everything comes down to the quantity and quality of social relationships. In particular, marital status, living arrangements and the characteristics of one's personal social network are quite consistently found to be among the strongest predictors of loneliness. These main findings about the risk factors for loneliness remained valid also during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this review have implications for policy, as understanding who the most vulnerable groups are is key for designing targeted policy solutions that tackle loneliness. • A review of over one hundred articles examining risk factors for loneliness • Socio-demographic factors have mostly indirect links to loneliness • Social network characteristics and partner status matter the most for loneliness • Many risk factors for loneliness are interrelated and impact each other • Risk factors for loneliness remained roughly the same during the COVID-19 pandemic [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the European context Active Citizenship has been promoted within the education and training Lisbon Strategy as a tool to support the continuation of democracy, human rights and greater social inclusion. In this article the authors analyse the impact of education on Active Citizenship and contribute to the existing debates relating to education levels and participation. The results of their analysis uniformly suggest that there is a significant democratic return associated with formal education. Indeed, using a large sample of individuals from the 2006/2007 European Social Survey, it was found that education is positively and significantly correlated with Active Citizenship behaviour. Tertiary education has by far the biggest impact and this impact is the strongest for the domain of Protest. The findings are robust to the introduction of a large set of control variables and to alternative measures of educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of the study is to examine the prevalence of loneliness in Europe in 2016 and during the first months - April-July 2020 - of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to assess whether the risk factors associated with loneliness have changed after the outbreak of the pandemic., Method: The analysis is based on two cross-country surveys, namely the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey and the 2020 Living, Working and COVID-19 Online Survey., Results: The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified already worrying levels of loneliness in Europe. Young adults have been the most severely hit by social distancing measures. Living alone has made social distancing measures more painful. Health and financial status are strong associates of loneliness, irrespective of the time period., Conclusion: This analysis will help anticipate the potential consequences that forced social isolation might have triggered in the population and identify populations more vulnerable to loneliness. Further monitoring is important to assess whether the registered increase in loneliness is transient or chronic and to design targeted loneliness interventions., Competing Interests: Declarations of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

We use data from the European Community Household Panel to investigate the impact of body weight on wages in nine European countries. When we pool the available data across countries and years, we find that a 10% increase in the average body mass index reduces the real earnings of males and females by 3.27% and 1.86%, respectively. Since European culture, society and labour market are heterogeneous, we estimate separate regressions for Northern and Southern Europe and find that the negative impact of the body mass index on earnings is larger--and statistically significant--in the latter area.