Loneliness and Satisfaction with Life among Young Adults Belonging to Nuclear and Joint families

Abstract

Aim/Objective: Loneliness has become a global health problem and different aspects of family has found to have significant association with it. This study tries to analyze the difference in loneliness and life satisfaction among young adults belonging to nuclear and joint families. It also tries to examine the gender difference present in nuclear and joint families for both variables Method: The sample consisted of 136 young adults belonging to nuclear and joint families. It included equal number of males and females. The UCLA Loneliness Scale (version 3) and The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used to collect the data. An independent sample t test was conducted to find the difference and Pearson Product moment correlation was used to find the association between variables. Results: No significant difference was found in loneliness and life satisfaction. It was also found that no gender differences existed, for both variables, between nuclear and joint families but loneliness was higher in females of joint families and compared to males. Similarly, no significant difference was found in correlation between both families. Conclusion: Results show no difference in loneliness and life satisfaction between nuclear and joint families which is consistent with findings of other studies examining same age group but inconsistent with studies focusing on other age groups like adolescents and geriatrics. These findings indicate that age group might be the reason behind inconsistent results found across different studies.