Association of loneliness and perceived social exclusion with donation behavior among community-dwelling individuals aged 40 and over: longitudinal evidence from the nationally representative German Ageing Survey.

Increases in loneliness were significantly associated with lower odds of donation after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, but this association became insignificant when lifestyle and health-related covariates were included.

• Analysis used fixed effects (FE) regressions with cluster-robust standard errors on longitudinal data from the German Ageing Survey
• Data spanned wave 5 (year 2014) to wave 8 (year 2023)
• Sample comprised community-dwelling individuals aged 40 years and over
• The attenuation of the loneliness effect suggests lifestyle and health-related factors may mediate or confound the relationship

Increases in perceived social exclusion were significantly associated with lower odds of donation across all models, including fully adjusted models.

• The association between perceived social exclusion and lower odds of donation remained significant after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, lifestyle, and health-related covariates
• Fixed effects regressions with cluster-robust standard errors were used to account for unobserved time-invariant confounders
• Established tools were used to quantify perceived social exclusion
• The willingness to donate served as one of the primary outcome measures

Neither changes in loneliness nor perceived social exclusion were significantly associated with changes in the log amount of donations.

• The total amount (in euros) of all donations in the last 12 months was used as a second outcome measure alongside willingness to donate
• Log transformation of donation amounts was used in the regression models
• This finding suggests that social exclusion and loneliness may influence the decision to donate but not the magnitude of giving among those who donate

Sociodemographic factors including age, sex, and education did not moderate the identified associations between loneliness or perceived social exclusion and donation behavior.

• Moderation analyses were conducted for age, sex, and education
• None of these sociodemographic variables significantly moderated the association between loneliness or social exclusion and donation odds
• This suggests the associations are broadly consistent across demographic subgroups within the sample

The study used longitudinal data from the nationally representative German Ageing Survey covering community-dwelling individuals aged 40 and over across four waves.

• Data were drawn from wave 5 (2014) to wave 8 (2023) of the German Ageing Survey
• The sample was nationally representative of the German community-dwelling population aged 40 years and over
• Fixed effects regressions were employed to control for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity
• Cluster-robust standard errors were used to account for within-individual correlation across waves