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arXiv · 2610.25158

Do LLMs Reproduce the Age Gap in Loneliness? Evaluating Survey Simulation against European Survey Data

Yuliya Li·Achim Rettinger·Dominik Beyer
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Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) are often used to simulate survey respondents, but matching survey averages does not establish accurate demographic differences. We test whether LLM outputs reproduce within-country age gaps in loneliness using the 2022 EU Loneliness Survey, comparing adults aged 18-34 and 65 or older in France, Italy, Poland, and Sweden. We evaluate simulation with and without age information and direct distribution estimation against a probability-based sample, with a non-probability sensitivity reference. Both human samples show higher mean loneliness among younger adults. Under age-specified simulation with standard response-option order, Mistral Small 4 and GPT-5.6 Terra reverse this ordering under all three prompt framings in three and two countries, respectively, mainly by overestimating older-adult means. DeepSeek V4 Flash preserves the ordering everywhere but underestimates both group means, with errors largely cancelling in France and Italy. Against the probability-based reference, direct estimation has lower absolute age-gap error than simulation for Mistral and Terra in every country. For DeepSeek, simulation has lower gap error but direct estimation has lower group-mean error; these comparisons depend on low-validity older-adult simulation cells. Evaluating LLM outputs as proxies for age groups within countries therefore requires checking both group means and their contrast against human survey data.

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Yuliya Li, Achim Rettinger, Dominik Beyer. 2026-10-18. Do LLMs Reproduce the Age Gap in Loneliness? Evaluating Survey Simulation against European Survey Data. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25158

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