Roughly equal shares of U.S. men and women say they’re often lonely; women are more likely to reach out to a wider network for emotional support.

As public debate and discussion over the status of men in America continues, some have raised concerns about men’s struggles with loneliness. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, compared with women, men don’t report that they feel lonely more often or have fewer close friends. However, men do seem to turn to their networks less often for social connection and emotional support.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ social connections and where they turn for emotional support at a time when these topics, and the gender dynamics surrounding them, are at the forefront of national conversations.

For this analysis, we surveyed 6,204 adults from Sept. 3 to 15, 2024. Most of the respondents who took part in this survey are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. The survey also included an oversample of Black and Hispanic adults from the SSRS Opinion Panel, another probability-based online survey web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this reportthe topline and the survey methodology.