My return to work following our holiday break greeted me with numerous articles discussing the “loneliness epidemic.” Loneliness is the perception of social isolation, which differs from objective social isolation, which describes the lack of contact with others due to a situational factor, such as the size of one’s social network. Loneliness describes the lack of feelings of social connectedness and relates more to the quality of relationships than the quantity, also known as perceived social isolation. You can be surrounded by people yet still feel lonely, and individuals with limited social interaction may experience little to no loneliness.
The U.S. Surgeon General declared the loneliness epidemic back in 2023, but the conversations I see today are typically framed in terms of male loneliness and leave out Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous, and Multiracial women, despite their similar experiences. It made me wonder, what’s happening now that brings these articles back up? Is it the holiday season? Coming up on Martin Luther King Jr. Day reminds me of his concept of the “Beloved Community” and his emphasis on economic investment in communities. His words about interdependence speak directly to today’s loneliness crisis. In Dr. King‘s speech from 1956, “The Birth of a New Age,” he said:
The first thing is this: we must rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns, with a broader concern for all humanity. You see, this new world is a world of geographical togetherness. No individual can afford to live alone now. The nation cannot live alone, for we have been brought together.
Following Dr. King’s lead, one of the solutions to the loneliness epidemic could lie in reinvesting in community, which provides the infrastructure for cultivating strong social connections at a time when loneliness seems to be on the rise globally.
What the Averages Hide
In a 2024 survey, roughly 16% of people in the U.S. reported feeling lonely at least most of the time; however, at WISER, we recognize that inequality can be masked in the aggregate. When we disaggregate by gender, we find that 15% of women reported feeling lonely most of the time, compared to 16% of men. From this view, it appears that similar shares of men and women experience loneliness; however, a more detailed picture emerges when we disaggregate further by race. Table 1 presents the share of people who reported feeling lonely at least most of the time in 2024, broken down by race, ethnicity, and sex. 21% of Multiracial women experience high levels of loneliness, followed by 16% for Black and Hispanic women. In other words, a headline that says ‘men and women are equally lonely’ hides the fact that Multiracial women are experiencing high loneliness at rates well above the national average (16%), along with Black and Hispanic women. Indigenous people were not included in this data, demonstrating the need for more investigations centered on indigenous experiences.
Table 1. Share of High Levels of Loneliness in 2024 by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex 
Table 2 shows average loneliness scores in 2024 by race, ethnicity, and sex. There is not much variation. Black, Asian, and Multiracial women reported similar feelings of loneliness, at 3.3 out of 5, and Hispanic women experienced 3.4 out of 5, the number equivalent of experiencing loneliness sometimes to hardly ever. This highlights how types of analysis tell different stories. These subtle differences may reflect variations in social network strength, structural factors, and cultural differences; however, further research is needed to investigate these mechanisms, since current literature is inconsistent in measuring differences in loneliness by race. Disaggregated analysis shows that different racial groups vary in their shares of people experiencing high levels of loneliness, but when we look at average scores across racial groups, this nuance disappears. If we relied only on average scores, we might wrongly conclude that race and gender barely matter for loneliness, missing the higher shares of Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial women who feel lonely most of the time.
Table 2. Average Loneliness in 2024 by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex 
Loneliness: The New Cigarette?
Social connection matters most, and although disaggregated data on loneliness is relatively new, trends in social isolation, which can influence a person’s ability to maintain strong connections, have been increasing for several years. A study measuring social isolation from 2003 to 2020 found an average increase of alone time of 24 hours a month. It also found that people’s time spent with friends has decreased by around 20 hours a month since 2003. This is alarming because there is extensive literature connecting loneliness to health-related problems in older populations, like cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline. The U.S. Surgeon General Murthy’s report describes loneliness as the new cigarette. But what does this mean for women working in industries that both necessitate fostering strong social connections while bringing employment insecurity and high levels of stress?
Table 3 shows the percentage of women working in community-sector occupations in 2024, by race and ethnicity. Women make up over 70% of workers in this sector. Of Black social workers, over 87% were women. Women also dominate in childcare, making up over 94% of childcare workers. Of Hispanic childcare workers, nearly 95% are women, and among Multiracial librarians, around 90% are women. One of the reasons we see such high concentrations of women in community service sector roles is because of occupational segregation. This is segregation in the labor market that comes from historically discounting women’s experience and filtering them toward lower-wage occupations.
Because so many community workers are Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Asian, and Multiracial women, they face economic and social vulnerability when we disinvest in community service sectors. They make up the backbone of the care sector, yet experience a widening pay gap, earning around 17% less than their private sector counterparts. This also doesn’t account for the unpaid care work of these women, within households and in the community, which has been valued at about $634.3 billion in the U.S. in 2023.
Seeing as Black and Hispanic women have higher shares of women working community sector jobs, and have some of the highest shares reporting loneliness, it is tempting to conclude that the explanation lies in their community involvement. Correlation between community-sector work and higher reported loneliness does not mean that these jobs ‘perpetuate’ loneliness; they often coexist, where meaningful social connection opportunities are met with high stress, low pay, and burnout risks.
Table 3. Share of Women Working in Community Sector Occupations in 2024 by Race and Ethnicity
Can We Pull Ourselves Up By The Bootstraps Out Of Loneliness?
Free will is granted to everyone. Some might argue that it is up to the individual to decide what choices they make, how they live their lives, and how much effort they put into connecting with their community or social network. At the same time, choice and opportunity are influenced by structural conditions. A lack of employment opportunities could mean people are moving cities and are no longer able to access the strong connections they once had. Working jobs that require a lot of emotional strain or are stressful can make it difficult to connect to others and perpetuate feelings of loneliness. But seeing who’s most vulnerable starts with disaggregation. When datasets and news articles treat ‘women of color’ as a single category, loneliness among Multiracial and Asian women disappears, and Indigenous women remain invisible altogether. Policymakers cannot fix what the data never show.
Because loneliness has multiple causes, it also has multiple solutions. One of the most essential steps starts with providing the support necessary to foster community in physical spaces, such as green spaces, public transportation, community centers, libraries, and housing. Strengthening social connection means not only funding libraries and parks, but also raising wages, benefits, and job quality for the women, disproportionately Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Asian, and Multiracial, who staff them. Investments in social infrastructure, which includes the physical assets of a community (such as libraries, community centers, and volunteer programs) and local policies (like housing or public transportation), support the social connections that combat loneliness.
These investments should prioritize equitable access, which is also necessary for strengthening communities and supporting social connections. This could also involve implementing community programs that bring people together, connect them as neighbors, and enable populations at higher risk of loneliness to build lasting connections. At WISER, we will continue to push federal agencies, funders, and researchers to collect and report disaggregated data on loneliness and social isolation measured separately, not collapsed into a single indicator, and to design interventions that start with the needs of Asian, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and Multiracial women.
Lily S. Johnson is a former research assistant. She worked on projects focused on financial well-being and menstrual health.
