Abstract:

Due to the dramatic social change, Chinese older people may have experienced increasing loneliness in recent decades. Wecomprehensively reviewed 25 studies using cross-temporal meta-analysis which were published from 1995 to 2011 and involved 13,280 old people. Results showed that (1) a positive relationship between loneliness and the year was found with 0.95 SD increased from 1995 to 2011; (2) loneliness scores for married and non-married groups had been increasing significantly,also to male and female groups; (3) the difference was significant betweennon-married and married people, but no difference was found between males and females.

Key words: loneliness, older adults, cross-temporal meta-analysis, meta-analysis, social change