January 20, 2026

Living alone in later life is often treated as a signal of social risk. The one-person household is easy to identify in administrative data and, as a result, frequently used as a proxy for loneliness in policy and service delivery.

However, this assumption can be misleading.

In the opinion piece ‘When seniors live alone, it doesn’t mean they are lonely’ (Straits Times, January 2026) by, Associate Professor Vincent Chua (NUS Sociology and Anthropology), Professor Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho (NUS Geography and NUS Asia Research Institute), and Associate Professor Chen-Chieh Feng (NUS Geography) illustrate how numerous seniors who live alone remain socially active, mobile, and embedded in wide community networks in Singapore.

The editorial draws on their 2025 article in Ageing & Society titled ‘Ageing in networks: living alone but connected’, where they conducted research on nearly 1,200 older Singaporeans, and found that while seniors living alone may be more likely to report loneliness, this risk is significantly reduced when they stay connected beyond the household. For instance, they may physically interact with others, communicate online, and move within their neighbourhoods – “ageing in networks” across multiple places. As the authors point out, equating living alone with loneliness thus risks misdirecting attention and resources, overlooking seniors who may live with others but still experience isolation.

Read ‘When seniors live alone, it doesn’t mean they are lonely’  here.

Read our post about ‘Ageing in networks: living alone but connected’ here.