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Loneliness Among Older Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults: The Role of Minority Stress

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Abstract

Past research has consistently found that aging lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) are more apt to suffer from loneliness than their heterosexual counterparts. Data from the 2002 Gay Autumn survey (N = 122) were used to find out whether minority stress relates to higher levels of loneliness among older LGB adults in the Netherlands. We examined five minority stress factors: external objective stressful events, expectations of those events, internalized homonegativity, hiding and concealment of one’s LGB identity, and ameliorating processes. The results showed that greater insight into loneliness among older LGB adults was obtained when minority stress factors were considered. Older LGB adults who had experienced negative reactions, as well as aging LGBs who expected those reactions, had the highest levels of loneliness. Having an LGB social network buffered against the impact of minority stress. These minority stress processes added to the variance already explained by general factors that influenced levels of loneliness (partner relationships, general social network, physical health, and self-esteem). Interventions aimed at decreasing feelings of loneliness among older LGBs should be focused on decreasing societal homonegativity (to decrease the amount of negative and prejudiced reactions) and on the enhancement of social activities for LGB elderly.

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Notes

  1. The relatively high number of missing cases was due to the large amount of missing values on the variable “LGB social network” (see Table 1). It is unclear whether those who did not answer this network question had either no LGB relations or skipped this question. Hence, giving those cases an average score was not an option.

  2. When constructing their loneliness scale, de Jong Gierveld and Kamphuis did not make a distinction between social and emotional loneliness since it was their intention to develop a unidimensional measure of the severity of feelings of loneliness. Recent work, however, demonstrated that a distinction of two subscales is legitimized despite the fact that the emotional loneliness subscale coincides with the negatively formulated and the social subscale with the positively formulated items (Dykstra & Fokkema, 2007; Fokkema & Knipscheer, 2007; van Baarsen, Snijders, Smit, & van Duijn, 2001; van Tilburg, Havens, & de Jong Gierveld, 2004). That is why we did not only present the total score on the loneliness scale, but also made a distinction between emotional loneliness (maximum score 6) and social loneliness (maximum score 5).

  3. This scale is comparable to Rosenberg’s (1965) Self-esteem scale and has been used in various studies in the Netherlands (e.g., Dykstra, 1995; Martina & Stevens, 2006; van Baarsen et al., 2001).

  4. See Footnote 1.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Note that the contribution of the LGB social network added to the explained level of variance beyond the variance already explained by the general social network. The correlation between these two variables was 0.28.

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Acknowledgments

The “Gay Autumn” project was initiated by the Schorerstichting (main applicant), COC Netherlands, ANBO, and IMCO (after it had joined forces with NPI: PRIMO nh).

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  1. Rutgers Nisso Groep, P. O. Box 9022, 3506 GA, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Lisette Kuyper

  2. Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Tineke Fokkema

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Correspondence to Lisette Kuyper.

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Kuyper, L., Fokkema, T. Loneliness Among Older Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults: The Role of Minority Stress. Arch Sex Behav 39, 1171–1180 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9513-7

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