Alone in a Time of Pandemic: Solo-Living Women Coping With Physical Isolation

Abstract

For people in single households, living alone has become literal and absolute during the social-distancing measures related to COVID-19 and can lead to decreased health and wellbeing. In this article, we examine how solo-living women think, feel, make sense of, and practice COVID-19-related social-distancing measures and, consequently, physical isolation. During lockdown, we interviewed 23 solo-living women between the ages of 25 and 69 years living in Slovenia. We present three levels of responses to social-distancing measures: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. We identified dissonances between these levels of responses, and we learned that affective responses play a significant role in shaping one’s orientation toward and respect for the social-distancing measures.