Young Australians Hate Life More Than Ever Before

The people around me seem unhappy.

It’s been this way for the last year. My general vicinity seems to be filled with struggle across every spectrum, whether that’s with mental health, affording food or rent, with personal relationships, or trying to live off of disability payments that barely lifts them above the poverty line. It seems like there’s a general black cloud hanging over everyone’s head.

It wasn’t like this two years ago, even in the pandemic – it’s become much more complex. I’ve honestly never seen as many friends around me upset, or say they need to move overseas for a fresh start, or believe they’re having a quarter life crisis. 

Well, now that observation is backed by…you guessed it: science.

Young Australians – in fact almost every Australian – are the least satisfied with their life than they’ve ever been in the last 20 years. That’s according to results from the 39th Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, from Deakin University and Australian Unity. 

Last year, in May and June, they interviewed 2000 participants, around Australia, aged 18 and into their 70’s, measuring two key markers in subjective well being: how satisfied people were with their life as a whole and how satisfied they were across seven key areas of life in relation to personal wellbeing. The latter includes measures like financial security, relationships, achieving in life, standard of living, health, community connectedness and personal safety.

For the first time in history, several of those measures fell below what was considered “normal” in the past 20 years, primarily ‘community connectedness’ and ‘health’.

Out of a score of 100 (signifying ultimate satisfaction) Australians averaged a 75% satisfaction rate for “Satisfaction with life as a whole” (that’s the lowest it’s ever been). The highest it’s ever been was in 2010, at 79%.

But the results are most significant in the 18 to 25 year-old range. When it came to personal wellbeing, young people reported the lowest life satisfaction ever recorded in the study at a 73% satisfaction rate. That was almost a whole percent lower than the next age group (46 to 55 year olds) and 6% lower than the highest ranking (76+).

Other areas of concern revolved around health, including mental health. Since 2020, our anxiety rates have moved from approximately 45% to 49%. And stress has increased from 44% to 51%.

But why? Why are we all so suddenly unhappy?

The report puts forward a number of reasons: The rising cost of living, returning to the “real” world after the pandemic, and anxieties around climate change. The survey also coincided with the mass flooding across the Northern part of New South Wales and Southern part of Queensland in 2022.

There was also an interesting change in life satisfaction across the pandemic. For anyone that experienced lockdowns, specifically in Australia, you’d assume that there would be lower levels of wellbeing in the years 2020 or 2021, but in reality the survey depicted that while there was a slight decrease, the numbers really plummeted in 2022.

Dr Kate Lycett, NHMRC Research Fellow at Deakin University’s School of Psychology and the lead researcher of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, speculates it’s as a result of the financial stability of many in low income and priority groups – in which young people usually fall.

“We saw that people who are on low incomes, or for instance, people who are unemployed, actually had a big boost to their well being [across the pandemic],” Lycett told VICE.

“Even people who had levels of anxiety or depression, we saw that their wellbeing was higher than it usually is because typically those groups have low wellbeing overall. We've written quite a bit about the fact that financial supplements were available for priority groups. 

“Jobseeker doubled overnight and lifted people out of poverty, Jobkeeper helped people who were on low incomes. That's the theory that we think had a big difference.”

An obvious theory to the drop in personal wellbeing in 2022 would be that those financial incentives stopped when Australia reopened and lockdowns were banished. But it could also be related to the increasing financial costs felt by all that same year.

“The war in Ukraine had started. And then there were the floods. So fruit and vegetables were already going up,” Lycett says.

“There were some immediate financial pressures on people who'd had two interest rate hikes already and rents and house property prices had gone through the roof.”

And the report refers to the ever growing cost of living crisis as a potential key result in the future surveys, deteriorating life satisfaction and personal well-being further.

“It’s a completely different time in terms of cost of living pressures, there’s been 11 rate hikes. Young people's HECs debt is going to go up seven percent come June 30. Standard of living is such a strong driver,” says Lycett.

“It's not the only driver but for people who are struggling below the poverty line, which I feel like many young people would be at the moment if you refer to the OECD poverty levels definition, I don’t expect it to get better. I expect it to get worse.”

And how could politicians help young people? Lycett says there needs to be less of a focus on band-aid solutions and a greater push towards fixing the core problems. 

At the end of last year, the federal government announced that, instead of focusing solely on policies that would cater to economic growth, it would analyse factors that lifted societal wellbeing. Introduced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the main commitment was to tackle wellbeing from a holistic approach that would allow policymakers to uncover the root cause of problems rather than treat the symptoms.

Though a step in the right direction, the introduction of the framework has, so far, not been brought to fruition.

That being the case, the idea of a wellness approach has been adopted by many countries around the world. You need only look to Northern Europe to find examples.

Lycett quotes Wales as a country that is currently heading in the right direction. 

“Wales has a wellbeing act, and it has a Future Generation Commissioner,” she says.

“There was a major freeway proposed costing billions of dollars. And the Future Generationists came in and had to weigh up, ‘Is this in the interest of future generations?’. And it was really clear that it wasn't.

“It would increase operations that would increase inequities. So now they actually have a moratorium on major freeways at the moment and have put all of that money into public transport. So it's a really different way of thinking.”

Whether that thinking will be adopted in Australia relies on current policymakers – and a re-work of thinking for a country intent on prioritising economic growth.  

“Personally, I think the wellbeing budget is a step in the right direction,” says Lycett.

“I think we need to be putting young people and future generations at the heart of policy decisions, then we can create environments that nurture and promote young people's well being that also benefits other generations.”

“Ultimately, the economy should work for people on the planet and not the other way around.”

Follow Julie Fenwick on Twitter and Instagram.

Read more from VICE Australia and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, This Week Online.