Writer: Keanu Djalal
Editor: Saskia Stock
A Global Epidemic
A Wall Street banker, an immigrant Uber Driver, a Berkeley research assistant. Different jobs, different backgrounds, different stages of life. But each has something in common: they feel unseen. The world today faces an epidemic. Not one of diseases, bacteria, or viruses, but of something far more daunting: isolation.
Today, more people live in urban city centers than at any point in recorded history, and yet, social isolation has risen in nearly every metropolis. The picture painted, however dreadful it may be, is obvious: we’re lonely. So much so that about 1 in 6 people worldwide currently suffer from loneliness, with more than 871,000 deaths being linked to this silent affliction annually. In an increasingly globalized world, we somehow manage to drift further apart, paradoxically finding ourselves more connected and yet disconnected than ever before. Still, such a juxtaposition begs the question: If growth is fostered by interconnectedness and relationships among economic decision-makers as economic convention posits, how does its absence affect the economy? How does loneliness change the way we view economic determinants, and how can society adjust to this trend of mass disconnection?
Counting the Costs
The relative absence of loneliness in academic economic dialogue is by no means coincidental. Its presence and effect as an intangible, internal feeling are more than arduous to gauge, let alone quantify. Regardless, despite a lack of discourse, make no mistake: it’s here, it’s present, and the economy knows it (albeit not holistically).
For instance, consider the healthcare costs. Social isolation is strongly linked to poorer health outcomes such as increased risks of stroke, heart disease, and depression. One global analysis found that loneliness raises the risk of premature death by up to 26%—a mortality impact on par with obesity and chainsmoking. Consequently, these lonely individuals’ heightened necessity for medical services incurs costlier expenditures. Billions of dollars in additional medical costs are borne by both governments and taxpayers, serving as a deadweight loss in the economy. A Spanish study cited loneliness as responsible for over $6.9 billion in additional annual health system expenditure. A similar sentiment was asserted by the WHO Commission, claiming socially disconnected communities face exacerbated healthcare burdens, illustrating the strain imposed on public health budgets. Shockingly, despite numbers of such magnitude, putting them into perspective reveals a scarier truth. The negative externalities engendered by healthcare costs constitute only a small fraction of the overall economy, prompting further inquiry into the aggregate effect of loneliness. So with dread, we ask ourselves: macroeconomically speaking, can loneliness materially inhibit overall growth? Emerging evidence says yes.
As a prerequisite, we need to understand that an economy is first and foremost determined by two things: production and consumption, wherein the former affects the latter and vice versa. Yet, the determinants of production are never quite as simple as the amount of labor or capital involved (despite the assertions of several textbooks). Rather, production hinges equally on the intangibles as much as it does on the numbers, compounding an additional layer of complexity to the assessment of growth and its determinants. Production—and thus our macroeconomic trajectory—is deeply responsive to the performance of labor, itself dependent on a variety of factors such as absenteeism and motivation. Both of these factors possess a negative dynamism with loneliness, with workers reported as lonely having a significantly higher likelihood of reporting reduced job performance and engagement, as well as being increasingly prone to absenteeism. To make matters worse, loneliness frequently forms a vicious and unfortunate dynamic with employment. Feelings of isolation make it far more taxing to find or keep a job, leading to lower incomes over time in both the micro and macro levels. In economic terms, an externality exists when part of a nation’s human capital remains inevitably underutilized as a consequence of loneliness, resulting in simultaneous sacrifices in production and consumption. Magnifying its aggregate effects in the macro, social isolation disrupts the flow of information between individuals, preventing the formation of bridging social capital—a vital component of regional economic growth. Essentially, fewer participants force a lower yield of entrepreneurs, informal business and commerce connections, and importantly, a weakened dissemination of new ideas. In effect, production and consumption experience less activity in the regional economy, creating additional losses with multiplier effects compounding these further outcomes. All together, these considerations illustrate that growth is antithetical to loneliness.
Aside from the theoreticals, the numbers support this claim further. In their examination of data across 139 European regions, researchers Andres Rodriguez-Pose and Chiara Burlina found a perturbing pattern: lonelier regions experienced lower per capita economic growth, as a rise in loneliness was found at least partially responsible for a curtailed capacity to generate wealth in the aggregate. Furthermore, an estimated £2 billion is lost annually by employers in the UK due to loneliness-related absenteeism and lost productivity. Even in the US, ostensibly the global economic leader, the scale of annual losses is even more distressing, with approximate losses totalling $400 billion. At roughly 1.4% of 2024 GDP, loneliness procures a loss comparable to a major recession.
Though seemingly improbable, the numbers don’t lie. Loneliness is not merely a you-or-me problem, nor is it an issue bound to any singular individual. Rather, loneliness can weigh down and inhibit the economic dynamism of entire communities, effectively expanding the scope of the crisis from one to ten to thousands. The hidden tax that isolation imposes on society manifests itself in higher public health bills, curbed productivity, and diminished innovation. In summary, to be devoid of sociality is to be devoid of the chance at optimal growth. These costs coalesce to serve as a frightening alarm that emotional and economic well-being are deeply intertwined, with the former augmenting the latter. But are these costs universal? Is the nature of its consequence universal?
The Exploits of Exclusion
Conversely, for the opportunistic, this harrowing epidemic holds the potential to sponsor a fortunate outcome from an unfortunate reality. Within the bleakness of isolation lies a silver lining; a new problem, a new need, a new market. As the grip of loneliness tightens, so too does the demand for its quelling. With millions seeking companionship, an ear to talk to, and a shoulder to lean on, entrepreneurs globally have attempted to capitalize on this emerging market. Thus, triggering a wave of goods and services produced and purposed for the monetization of isolation. Services such as chatbot friends, online dating platforms, and online webcam chat sites have exploded, with new innovations constantly developing in a concentrated effort to commercialize loneliness. A Japanese robotics start-up, for example, produced AI-powered robot companions to comfort the country’s aging population. Additionally, some cities even offer “rent-a-friend” services where you can pay for companionship. In Japan, consumers can rent ossans (middle-aged men) for company and conversation. Such attempts at monetization are not exclusive to tech or novel services, however, as traditional sectors have also pivoted to capitalize on growing loneliness with booms in therapy and wellness programs targeting disconnected young adults. The development of new mediums and pathways towards profit could suggest that, in certain sectors and for certain groups, loneliness may prove economically fruitful.
This rampant and successful commercialization of loneliness depicts two sides of the same coin. On one hand, it shows a profitable market with high growth potential, as well as the opportunistic behaviour needed to capitalize on such a development. On the other, more frightening hand, it highlights more than ever the extent to which this affliction has proliferated, and the terrifying degree to which it sways society, its constructs, and behavior. The fact that an entirely new market has spawned from this issue exemplifies how severe the issue itself has become. Still, while these solutions (or exploits) provide relief, albeit temporarily, they raise a difficult question: if such an affliction produces such exploits in which we may uncover value, why bother correcting it at all?
Reconnection & Revitalization
The gravity of the epidemic’s economic weights and consequences suggests that addressing it may be one of the greatest investment opportunities of our time. Around the world, people and policymakers have recognized the value of such an effort, treating social connection as a public good that merits support. For instance, in 2018, the UK appointed the world’s first Minister of Loneliness to spearhead national efforts on revitalizing social connections. Nationalized attempts at combating loneliness, whether it means building social infrastructure—such as community centers and parks—or other means of encouraging social involvement—such as therapy, welfare subsidies, and campaigns aiming to destigmatize seeking help or companionship—are not exclusive to the UK, with numerous global entities following suit. A 2025 OECD report highlighted how nations around the world have begun addressing the issue, with many now developing formal strategies for social connection. From the UK’s nationwide program to Spain’s developing national strategy against unwanted loneliness, a global and planned initiative now sits at the intersection of cross-sector efforts from social skills training in schools and social isolation screenings in healthcare institutions, to urban planners designing “neighborly” spaces to encourage social interaction. The economic logic behind such efforts is simple: if the aforementioned negative externalities of loneliness produce a deadweight loss that stifles economic growth, then interventions that abate it would yield a high social return on investment. Though critics may argue that such interventions place unnecessary strain on budget expenditure or constitute an unnecessary overhead, early evidence suggests that such projects pay off. Denmark, for instance, found that programs targeted towards lonely adults saved significant sums of public money on emergency hospital visits.
In light of this, it becomes evident that the mitigation of loneliness is not merely a peripheral concern, nor is it solely a humanitarian imperative, but an economic one too; one that could potentially turn lost productivity into regained growth. What was once seen exclusively as an emotional or social issue is now understood to bear very real economic consequences on the individual, the nation, and ultimately, the world. As WHO Director-General Dr. Ghebreyesus put forth, if left unaddressed, this epidemic “will continue to cost society billions in terms of health care, education, and employment.” Perhaps most importantly, a less lonely society would unlock human potential currently squandered in silent despair. This illustrates that the dividends of connection are immense, for both individuals and economies alike. The fight against loneliness is not one to be shunned and discarded into the depths of our afterthoughts, but a worthy endeavor on both human and economic grounds. Still, at the end of the day, reality is what it is. To borrow wisdom from the realm of physics, an object at rest stays at rest. Let loneliness not be an issue we leave at rest, ignored and irrelevant. And so we ask ourselves once again, what do a Wall Street banker, an immigrant Uber Driver, and a Berkeley research assistant have in common? The same thing we all have in common: we’re lonely.
Featured Image by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash
