Abstract
The present study was planned to find out the impact of socio economic status on
social support, social isolation, and social and emotional loneliness among older
adults. Three scales were used in present study to measure the constructs i.e. 6-
Item (short) De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (1985),6-item (short) scale developed
by Hawthorne (2006), and Social Support Scale developed in Urdu by Malik (2002).
Two scales were translated into Urdu language in order to derive more natural
responses from the participants. Standardized translation procedure was used for
the translation of the measures. Purposive convenient sampling technique was
used to draw the sample of 500 older adults from both urban and rural areas of the
various districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The age of the
participants ranged from 60 to 90 years (M = 67.59, SD = 7.54). Alpha coefficients
for the all variable were computed, which ranged between .60 for social loneliness
to .96 for social support total scale. Significant gender differences were found on
social support and its sub constructs, whereas significant difference on all study
variables were also observed for socio economic status.
