Australia hit peak happiness in 2003 – it’s been downhill since

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA) shows the life satisfaction of Australian women has been significantly higher than that of men in every year except 2010. Contact with others at least once a week is a significant contributor to wellbeing, the results suggest.

Melbourne University’s Ferdi Botha, a co-author of the HILDA report, said the report’s findings show that “money is not as important as relationships” when it comes to happiness.

He said COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns had affected life satisfaction.

“It is clear that the arrival of COVID-19 and the resulting public health measures will have substantially reduced life satisfaction in Australia,” Dr Botha said.

“Declines in employment, growth in health fears and declines in social activities and community sport will all have had substantial adverse effects.”

Australia’s overall average life satisfaction score peaked in 2003 but has been lower ever since.

Despite the decline in happiness, average household wealth rose by 58 per cent between 2002 and 2018 after adjusting for inflation.

However, the average debt carried by households has grown even faster – up by 104 per cent between 2002 and 2018. In 2002 the average household had just under $100,000 in debts (in December 2018 prices) but by 2018 that had reached $203,000.

Men have 50 per cent more superannuation savings than women although the gender gap has shrunk from 109 per cent in 2002.

The HILDA survey has questioned the same representative sample of about 17,000 Australians since 2001. The latest survey was completed in 2018, prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The survey also examined weekend work, which can have a bearing on life satisfaction. It showed one in three employees does some work on weekends, which is a similar share to 2004.

The share of women doing weekend work has risen in that period while men’s share has declined.

More than half of those aged 15-24 work on weekends, by far the highest share of any age group.

People who work more than 50 per cent of their total hours on the weekend are also more likely to be single, have no children, be employed as casuals and not have attended university.

More than 16 per cent of women and 10 per cent of men who worked the majority of their hours on weekends also held more than one job.

Working most hours on the weekend is associated with worse mental health, particularly for women.

Loading

Senior research fellow at the Melbourne Institute and co-author of the report Dr Esperanza Vera-Toscano said the negative impact of weekend work alongside the persistence of this type of work pointed to a need for new policies.

“Around 60 per cent of those who said they worked over weekends were still working on weekends five years later,” she said.

“And when we go deeper into the characteristics of those individuals who are working on weekends, we find they have worse mental health, they tend to be multi-job holders and more than 50 per cent are casual workers, they face a number of precarious circumstances.

“This analysis should encourage policymakers to consider interventions without restricting access to work.”