Social interactions, loneliness and collective health: A new angle on an old debate

Loneliness is increasingly being recognized as an important economic and public health issue. This paper investigates the relationship between historically rooted norms that drive individuals to conform to predefined behavioral standards and contemporary perceptions of social interactions and attitudes towards loneliness. Using a sub-population of second-generation immigrants, we identify an intergenerationally transmitted component of culture that reflects the importance of restrained discipline and rules characterizing highly intensive pre-industrial agricultural systems. We show that this cultural dimension influences perceptions of the quality of social relationships and significantly affects the likelihood of experiencing loneliness. The identified trait is then used to instrument loneliness in a two-stage model for health. We find that loneliness directly affects body mass index and some specific mental health issues. We argue, however, that loneliness may influence other health outcomes indirectly due to its economically significant effect on the increased body mass index. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks. Our findings add to a growing body of research on the importance of attitudes in predicting significant economic and health outcomes, opening up a new channel via which deeply-rooted geographical, cultural, and individual characteristics may influence comparative economic development processes.