Minority or migrant? loneliness among older immigrants in England

Publication type

Journal Article

Series Number

Authors

Publication date

November 5, 2025

Summary:

Using recently available, nationally representative data on loneliness among older individuals in England, we ask: do the foreign born and their children have higher levels of loneliness than otherwise similar individuals without a migration background, and how are differences in loneliness related to both minority and immigrant experiences? In contrast to theoretical predictions, we do not find higher loneliness among the foreign born and their descendants as compared to the white British majority. However we do find that a minoritised social position, in particular exposure to discrimination, is associated with greater loneliness among those with a migration background. Immigrants who arrived later in the life course, and originated from outside the EU, are also lonelier in older age than those born in the UK or who arrived at younger ages.

Published in

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2579179

ISSN

1369183

Subjects

Notes

Online Early

Open Access

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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