Social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of long-term connectedness and cumulative inequality in later life

Though the COVID-19 crisis put many older adults at sudden risk of social isolation, the pandemic was far from the “great equalizer” some pundits and politicians initially claimed it would be. Drawing from Cumulative Inequality Theory, I consider how long-run patterns of social dis/connectedness contextualize key disparities in social contact that manifested during the pandemic. I incorporate data from four rounds of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (2005–2021), constructing multiple operationalizations of connectedness accumulation across pre-COVID years and examining several types of social contact during the pandemic, both in-person and remote. Results from ordered logistic regression show that those most durably connected were especially likely to incorporate digital tools for maintaining contact with family and friends. On the other hand, people experiencing more bouts of social disconnection were least likely to see friends during the pandemic, and were yet relatively tolerant of that level of engagement. Even while many older people's level of social dis/connectedness fluctuates over the course of 15 years, it was long-run accumulation patterns—not conditions observed most recently—that best explain their experience of social contact during the pandemic. Findings point to the role of crises in perpetuating and exacerbating key axes of inequality, and suggest points of attention and intervention in COVID's aftermath.