Social Isolation in Modern Society

Roelof Hortulanus, Anja Machielse, Ludwien Meeuwesen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134209330
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Social isolation has serious repercussions for people and communities across the globe, yet knowledge about this phenomenon has remained rather limited – until now.

The first multidisciplinary study to explore this issue, Social Isolation in Modern Society integrates relevant research traditions in the social sciences and brings together sociological theories of social networks and psychological theories of feelings of loneliness. Both traditions are embedded in research, with the results of a large-scale international study being used to describe the extent, nature and divergent manifestations of social isolation.

With a new approach to social inequality, this empirically based study includes concrete policy recommendations, and presents a clear insight into personal, social and socio-economic causes and the consequences of social isolation.

Part I

Social isolation

1 The issue of social isolation

Roelof Hortulanus and Anja Machielse

1.1 Social isolation: manifestations?

Often we hear news reports that a person has been found dead at home. The longer the death remained unnoticed, the more attention such a report gets. The typical questions that journalists pose to neighbours are: ‘Did you know the deceased? Did you not notice that he had not gone outside for quite a while?’ This type of news leaves us feeling uncomfortable. It raises questions about one’s street and neighbourhood: could something like that happen here too? In the summer of 2003, France was shocked by the number of people who had passed away alone during a heatwave that lasted several days. The informal network of family, friends, acquaintances and neighbours was apparently insufficient or entirely absent, and the professional system was incapable of reacting adequately. There are other harrowing examples of social isolation in our modern society. We regularly read about single men and women who neglect themselves and their dwelling. In recent decades, the street scene in large cities has witnessed the increase of homeless people: the man who looks for food leftovers in garbage containers, the woman who rambles the streets mumbling to herself. The sight of such people leads us to wonder how things got so far, and whether no one looks after these people anymore.

These dramatic examples of socially isolated people raise the question of whether we are dealing with a small group of dropouts from society or with the tip of an iceberg – for the rest a fairly invisible one. In other words, are there many more individuals in our society who for all kinds of reasons are cut off from the social and societal outside world? And are these specifiable categories – for example, older immigrants who never connected to the society to which they moved and live in total isolation, lone mothers who no longer see possibilities to participate in social or societal life – or can social isolation affect any member of society? Can it be specified as a personal risk of modern society?

The different manifestations of social isolation become more poignant when you consider the major importance our society attaches to personal relationships and a rich social life. An expression of this is ‘emotion television’, which can spotlight persons who want to enter into new relationships or restore broken ones. We have reality TV, which shows how people live with each other for several weeks or months and how relationships between them develop. Television viewers identify with the characters from the soap operas that ‘come into their homes’ every day and seem to form a surrogate for contacts with family and friends: the viewers are made part of the emotional highs and lows in the lives of these characters. The importance social relationships have acquired can also be seen in the blooming market of dating and matchmaking services and the increasing space that personal ads are taking in newspapers and dating websites. Also remarkable are the general appeals to people from organizations like the Salvation Army and non-commercial advertising on television to create civic awareness for lonely fellow human beings.

1.2 Social isolation: a phenomenon of our times?

Is there reason to assume that in our modern times it has become much more difficult to make and maintain social contacts, and has the risk of social isolation grown? Are the consequences of individualization in our society among these risks? The individual is unquestionably more self-dependent, and less able to fall back on traditional social bonds like church, neighbourhood, family, work, political party or labour union, since these have lost a great deal of meaning. Obviously not all social bonds have disappeared, but the individualistic lifestyle has changed the character of society. The effects can be noticed in personal life, in the dealings between people and in the general social environment. Whereas people used to have a limited number of relatively stable bonds (marriage, family, work, neighbourhood, club life), nowadays there are many relatively fleeting bonds. The fairly small communities in which people used to live have made way for a multiplicity of social bonds within which people have to function. Within each of these bonds, people have to deal with different expectations and role patterns.

In a certain sense parallel to the individualization of western societies, welfare states developed in the second half of the twentieth century, mainly in Western Europe. Differences may indeed exist between the Scandinavian countries, England and the Netherlands, and southern Europe, but everywhere a more or less extensive system of public social benefits has been established that has made people less dependent on members of the community than they used to be (Esping-Andersen, 1990). All kinds of societal institutions now fulfil a role in people’s social lives, as a result of which informal contacts between individuals have been partially formalized (for example, in health care). In recent decades, many personal contacts have been replaced with institutional associations.

These developments offer more freedom and possibilities for self-determination, but also require new skills. The disappearance of widespread social patterns and structures not only presents possibilities for emancipation, development and self-government but also entails great insecurities. In this context, Beck (1986) speaks of risks of individualization, risks that are more person-bound than the class-bound inequalities of other times. Whereas traditions and its related rules guided actions, these days people have to find their own way and choose from the many possibilities available. Not everyone is equally equipped to do this (Knorr-Cetina, 2001; Orbach, 1998). While for some people the new situation produces more freedom and a wealth and variety of contacts, others feel lost in the midst of large-scale associations and the superficiality of contact patterns – hence individual freedom and vulnerability end up very close together. This is even more the case in recent decades, now that in Western European welfare states the social benefits system is undergoing a process of austerity, and cuts in professional care and welfare facilities are a necessity. On the basis of the above-mentioned theoretical assumptions we may assume that increasing numbers of people are unable to keep themselves going and build a network of meaningful contacts around them. At the same time government policy has made a greater appeal to people’s ability to cope independently, thus increasing the importance of good informal social networks and informal social support.

1.3 Social isolation: how does it happen?

Although we assume that it has become more difficult to build and maintain meaningful social contacts, the importance of social contacts has in fact increased in terms of both personal and societal functioning. How come some people fail to build a stable and supportive network around them while others are successful? Is their social isolation caused by personal and societal factors, or is there a combination of both? People tend to imagine social isolation as a consequence of ageing, long-term unemployment or loss of a partner. Is it indeed mostly these life circumstances that can lead people into social isolation? Or do other factors play a role? Could personal characteristics be instrumental in the emergence of social isolation, like a lack of self-respect or self-confidence and poor social skills that makes entering into stable relationships with others more difficult (Hortulanus et al., 1992)? Perhaps other youth experiences or other life events, such as prolonged illness, affect people in such a way that their personal contacts are severely affected.

For growing numbers of citizens the workplace has assumed an increasingly significant role when entering into (meaningful) social contacts. Increased participation in the labour market also ensures that building and maintaining a social network in the home situation and one’s own living environment is under increasing (time) pressure: the contacts established at work are often at the expense of contacts in the private sphere. We see this especially in the female portion of the population. For a long time it was primarily women who maintained these social contacts with family, friends and neighbours. The demand to participate in the labour process implies that their daily contacts too must compete with social contacts from their professional environment. Does this make those people who do not (or cannot) participate in the labour process (like the long-term unemployed or the disabled) better-off or worse-off in terms of their social contacts?

The living environment can also play a role in the emergence of social isolation. For many people, neighbourhoods have acquired a different meaning than they used to have, not only due to increased labour participation but also because of greater geographic mobility. It is therefore interesting to find out to what degree social isolation is associated with local circumstances and the social environment. People nowadays assume that social isolation is a typical phenomenon of the big cities, as this is where one finds the greatest cultural and ethnic diversity. Due to a heterogeneity of lifestyles and etiquettes, people in urban neighbourhoods have less contact with each other than used to be the case. However, in recent decades small communities have also undergone developments that could foster social isolation: the populations of many small towns have dropped significantly, and many local facilities have disappeared. More and more residents have to leave their villages in order to participate in all kinds of societal activities (for example, work, recreation, entertainment) or use facilities (like libraries or social work services). It is the less mobile groups in particular – the elderly, housewives, households without a car – that experience the negative consequences of the spatial scale increase and the concentration of such activities and facilities. Such outcomes make them more dependent on personal networks and hence more vulnerable to social isolation.

In addition to personal characteristics, life events, degree of societal participation and the modern neighbourhood environment, the living situation of certain categories of people can also be identified as a factor in the emergence of social isolation. For example, a large-scale national study in the Netherlands showed that lone-parent families have great difficulty with social contacts. Of the lone parents with a low societal position, as many as 20 per cent are socially isolated (Hortulanus et al., 1992). Another factor is the precarious living situation of lone seniors who live on their own.

1.4 Social isolation: private matter or societal problem?

In addition to inquiring into the factors that play a role in the emergence of social isolation, there is another question – whether we should see social isolation as a private matter or a societal problem. Social contacts are important to people’s personal and societal well-being (Hortulanus et al., 1992). They increase self-respect and fulfil a key role in dealing with problems: people in somebody’s social network can more readily be there for someone with a problematic situation without giving problem accumulation a fighting chance. Moreover, social contacts have become more important for societal functioning: persons from the social network can provide access to assorted societal resources like work, an education, etc. To ‘belong’, societally speaking, it is also necessary to have the right contacts and to ‘network’.

The impact on personal well-being and threat to societal functioning can be reason enough to view social isolation not exclusively as a private matter but also as a societal issue. Social networks, however, are also relevant when seen from the perspective of society as a whole. People who are part of social networks are more active in societal life: they participate more in club life, provide more informal care, do more volunteer work and are more involved in all kinds of societal organizations. This is important to society because this societal participation forms a feeding ground for social activity and involvement with the ‘weaker’ and ‘dropouts’ of society.

In a different way, social isolation can also constitute a threat to social cohesion and solidarity within society. The intrusive way in which the social isolation of drifters, the homeless and junkies in neighbourhoods and urban centres manifests itself can be experienced as a direct threat by other users of the public domain. Less visible forms of social isolation do not seem to be directly unfavourable to social cohesion, but if people are no longer part of regular society they can also lose contact with the norms and values prevailing in that society – values that are essential for social integration and societal stability.

What happens with people who cannot meet the demands our individualized and complex society makes of them? Those who do not participate in the labour process and are unable to build a supportive network in their private life end up outside of society, in a social as well as a societal sense. Furthermore, this category of people who cannot manage on their own is not assertive enough to present their interests and needs to professional agencies. They alienate their social and societal environment, and their bonds with it keep dwindling. Social isolation could therefore be designated as a new form of social inequality.

1.5 Social isolation: a theme for social policy?

If in addition to psychological factors, societal circumstances also play a role in the emergence of social isolation problems. As the consequences of social isolation do not only affect the individual but also cause societal disruption, one should expect social isolation to be an important theme of social policy. However, until now social isolation has received little policy-related attention. Most of the focus in social policy, at the local level, still lies on battling societal disadvantages and thus material issues. Important focal points are work, income, education and the neighbourhood environment. Governments tend to emphasize societal participation and the assumed active involvement of citizens. Next to these classic disadvantage indicators, more recent goals of social policy – under the denominators of ability to cope independently, personal responsibility and mature autonomy – have been defined mainly in the light of societal participation and active involvement.

Must the government also create conditions to strengthen the social competency of individuals so that people can have a properly functioning personal network, or can it make do with offering a safety net for those who do not make it on their own? Can practising professionals in the sphere of care and welfare provide adequate answers to these problems when confronted with social isolation? Primary physicians and social workers are under enormous pressure: they usually lack the means to give extra time and attention to these clients, if they come into contact with them at all. Mental health institutions are oriented specifically towards severe mental problems. Institutions such as the Social Services Department, neighbourhood police, housing corporations and municipal health services only intervene after the situation has taken extreme forms, for example, if public health or the public order is threatened. Still, attention to social competency and a properly functioning social network could sometimes prove to be a decisive condition or point of reference for the success of assistance in other areas of life. In terms of social policy, more knowledge about social isolation allows for better recognition of the value of preventive interventions, anticipation of risk factors, and relief or elimination of social isolation that is already there.

1.6 Research aim

Given the developments in society, it is possible that the problems of social isolation may worsen further. Changed relationship patterns, increasing numbers of inactive people, higher demands on social competences, greater cultural and ethnic diversity, crumbling social bonds, problems bringing up youth: all these issues influence people’s social functioning. Despite all these signals, little is known at this point about the nature and scope of social isolation. There isn’t even an unambiguous definition of social isolation. Although much research has been done in recent years into loneliness and social ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Preface
• Part I Social isolation
• Part II Personal and social factors
• Part III Comparisons and differentiation
• Part IV Reflections
• Appendices
• References
• Author index
• Subject index