ABSTRACT
Class and social capital have been found to be associated with health. Rather than examining the relationship between class and loneliness in general, this chapter studies the relationship between each component of class and loneliness in the context of contemporary Europe. Being unemployed does not necessarily make people vulnerable to a higher risk of feeling lonely frequently; what matter to loneliness is the length of unemployment, the longer the unemployment, the higher the risk. The size of the organization that the respondent works for and whether they are supervisors or supervisees make a difference to frequent loneliness in some but not in other European countries, and the distribution of the countries does not present any clear regularity. The more difficult people felt about their financial situation, the more prevalent frequent loneliness; income level and the chance of feeling financial difficulties are associated negatively; nevertheless, the exact form of relationship varies noticeably across the national contexts. Overall, there appears to be a negative, weak, but statistically significant association between the two variables: the higher the level of education, the lower the prevalence of frequent loneliness. Those having a confidante and participating in social activities more than peers are less likely to feel lonely frequently, and such effect appears almost universal across European countries. Not all components of social capital are equally important to loneliness, and the national variation of social capital’s effect on loneliness remains.
