Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
August 12, 2026
Summary:
Objectives:
This study examines the association between financial strain and loneliness among adults aged 66 years and older. Guided by stress-buffering and gender socialization perspectives, it also assesses whether neighborhood cohesion moderates this association and whether this moderation varies by gender.
Methods:
Using two waves of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study that include measures of loneliness and neighborhood cohesion (n = 3,467 individuals; 6,934 person-wave observations), fixed-effects regression models examined whether within-individual changes in financial strain were associated with changes in loneliness over time. Interaction terms assessed moderation by neighborhood cohesion and whether this moderation varied by gender.
Results:
Financial strain was associated with increased loneliness over time, whereas higher neighborhood cohesion was associated with lower loneliness. Neighborhood cohesion attenuated the adverse association between financial strain and loneliness. Gender-stratified analyses showed that this buffering effect was statistically significant among women but not among men; however, the three-way interaction among financial strain, neighborhood cohesion, and gender was not statistically significant.
Discussion:
The findings highlight the need for community-based initiatives that foster neighborhood cohesion and for targeted financial support programs to reduce financial strain and its psychological consequences among older adults.
Published in
Aging & Mental Health
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2026.2715765
ISSN
13607863
Subjects
Notes
Online Early
Open Access
© 2026 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-nonCommercial-noDerivatives license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, trans-formed, or built upon in any way. 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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