Marginalization and Intersectionality in Adults’ Relationship to Society Explain Increasing Loneliness: A Critical Realist Lens on Thematic Narrative Inquiry

Loneliness epidemics affecting roughly 10% to 40% of adult populations do not have sufficient guidance for public health experts or governments to adequately address. To improve guidance, we developed an interdisciplinary approach to deepen explanation of underlying causes of loneliness using a critical realist lens. Using theory about social connection as a human basic need to frame our analysis, we first conducted thematic narrative inquiry to examine broader patterns in the social systems adults described during loneliness experiences. Secondary data came from online, open-ended survey responses by anonymous adults about their loneliness experiences, made publicly available by The Loneliness Project in 2018. We further developed our results through abductive reasoning to deepen explanation of underlying causes. Major Health Problems, Big Moves & Small Families, Stigma Mistreatment or Abuse, Caregiving Beyond My Capacity, and Fitting In, described five social systems of poor relationship quality that could compound across society and over time, resulting in exclusion from society. These systems could intersect, explaining differences in the severity of exclusion. Five main social systems were found to describe the process of marginalization from society. These results offer an alternative approach to clinical and therapeutic interventions for loneliness that have focused on individual changes of lonely adults to find inclusion in their communities. It may be possible to identify specific mechanisms for marginalization that could be changed to reduce severe and chronic loneliness for whole communities.