Do LLMs Reproduce the Age Gap in Loneliness? Evaluating Survey Simulation against European Survey Data
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 ...
| Authors | Yuliya Li, Achim Rettinger, Dominik Beyer |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 18 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 18 October 2026 |
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