The missing community behind Australia’s loneliness crisis

Ask Australians what’s gone wrong lately and you’ll hear a familiar list: phones, social media, the cost of living, politics that seems designed to split us into opposing camps. These explanations feel convincing, and each carries some truth.

But beneath them sits a number that deserves far more attention.

A 2025 report on young Australians found that 43 per cent of people aged 15 to 25 feel lonely. More than two in five. For many, it isn’t a passing feeling. One in seven has experienced loneliness for at least two consecutive years, and those who were persistently lonely were more than seven times as likely to experience high or very high psychological distress.

Nor is this confined to younger Australians. Nearly one in three adults report feeling lonely, while researchers have compared the health effects of chronic loneliness to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

COVID-19 is often blamed, along with technology and changing lifestyles. Yet perhaps those are symptoms rather than the underlying problem.

To understand why, it helps to step back.

For almost all of human history, people did not live the way most Australians do today. Families lived together across generations. Neighbours were part of everyday life. Children, grandparents, relatives and friends formed overlapping communities where people knew one another, looked out for each other and remained connected through daily routines.

The nuclear family, living privately behind its own front door, is remarkably recent in human history. The Industrial Revolution changed how people earned a living. As people moved to cities for work, it also changed how they lived. The shift brought many benefits, but it quietly removed something humans had relied upon for thousands of years: the constant presence of community.

A man interviewed recently by The New York Times admitted he longed for community so deeply that he imagined organising barbecues for everyone in his apartment building. Eight months later, he still had not knocked on a single neighbour’s door.

That gap between wanting connection and not knowing where to find it sits beneath Australia’s loneliness statistics. The need for community never disappeared. The structures that once provided it did.

The numbers tell the same story. Formal volunteering in Australia fell from 36 per cent of adults in 2019 to 26.7 per cent by 2022, representing about 1.86 million fewer volunteers and accelerating a decline already underway before the pandemic. There were fewer clubs, fewer congregations and fewer weekly reasons to spend time with people who gradually become part of your life.

For decades, many researchers believed religion across developed countries would continue its steady decline. The trend even earned a name, the “Great Dechurching”, with estimates suggesting around 40 million people left churches in the United States alone.

Then, around 2020, something changed.

Recent Pew Research Center data suggests the long decline in religious identification has stalled for the first time in a generation. That does not necessarily point to a religious revival. But it does suggest that what once appeared inevitable may not be.

Perhaps the more interesting question is why some people are returning.

The answer often has little to do with theology. Many describe wanting accountability beyond themselves. They want someone to notice when they are absent. They want a home-cooked meal when they are sick instead of sympathetic comments online. They want a sense of purpose and belonging that modern life often struggles to provide.

People are not necessarily rediscovering belief. Many are rediscovering belonging. For most of history, those two experiences arrived together.

That brings us back to the paddock near Western Sydney Airport.

If someone set out to design an organisation that directly addressed the loneliness described in today’s research, it might look remarkably similar to BAPS.

BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha has been part of Australian community life for more than three decades. Across the country it has grown to 19 temples and 84 centres where families gather each week for prayer, learning and service. Its members span generations, professions and backgrounds. Some arrived in Australia recently. Others were born here.

Their growth reflects wider demographic changes. Hinduism became Australia’s fastest-growing religion between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, increasing by 55.3 per cent to more than 684,000 people.

What connects BAPS members is not ethnicity or age. It is a simple philosophy: In the joy of others lies our own.

That principle is expressed through volunteer service. Every BAPS community programme in Australia is run by volunteers. There are no paid staff behind these activities, only individuals and families giving their time because they believe serving others matters.

Within Hindu tradition this service is known as seva, although the instinct itself will feel familiar to many Australians. Volunteer firefighters, junior sporting coaches and neighbours delivering meals to someone recovering from illness all reflect the same impulse. BAPS did not invent that spirit. It provides an organised place where people can practise it consistently.

That philosophy is becoming increasingly visible through a new 25-acre cultural precinct near Sydney, alongside temples and centres already operating across Australia.

Look again at the numbers. Forty-three per cent of young Australians experiencing loneliness. Nearly 1.9 million volunteers disappearing. Friendships reduced to occasional contact squeezed between increasingly busy lives.

Perhaps those figures were never really about smartphones, lockdowns or urbanisation. Perhaps they describe something else. Community has gradually been removed faster than it has been replaced.

Religion is often viewed primarily as belief, as questions about faith or doctrine. Yet many people returning to religious communities describe something much simpler. They want somewhere people notice if they do not arrive. They want opportunities to contribute. They want relationships built through showing up consistently.

The man dreaming about apartment block barbecues did not lack motivation. He lacked a structure that made connection easier.

Loneliness is often framed as an individual problem requiring personal effort. But community has rarely been built by isolated individuals. It grows through shared routines, repeated encounters and places where people keep returning.

BAPS offers one example of that structure. A structure, though, is only scaffolding until people fill it. Its members return each week guided by five simple words: In the joy of others lies our own.

Perhaps the answer to feeling unseen is not simply being noticed ourselves. Perhaps it begins by turning up for someone else. Over time, strangers become familiar faces, neighbours become friends and a sense of belonging quietly takes root.

That process is already taking place each week in BAPS temples and centres across Australia, where volunteers continue to gather around a shared commitment to service and community.