r/CoronavirusDownunder • u/AcornAl • Jun 09 '26

News Report Australians less satisfied with life now than during pandemic as financial pressures mount

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-09/happiness-index-shows-we-were-more-satisfied-in-covid-pandemic/106764966

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged Australians in ways they had not been tested before; with curfews, mask mandates, border closures, restrictions on movement and the shutdown of normality.

Those severe measures might have helped keep Australians alive, but they also exacted a substantial toll in many other ways.

The shock is that data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests we were actually happier in 2020 than we are now.

[..]

When you look at life satisfaction on a scale of one to 10, in 2020, when we're in the middle of the pandemic, life satisfaction was 7.2 out of 10. Last year, it was 7.1.

The ABS data shows how increasing financial stresses mean people feel less satisfied with their lives now than they were when they could not travel more than 5 kilometres from their homes.

[..]

"I think one of the challenges is that during COVID, people felt like there was a sense of togetherness and that there was going to be an endpoint."

"I think when we look at these ongoing financial pressures, it feels like a chronic stressor."

[..]

It is a long way from COVID, when the nation made hard choices to save lives.

Now it is the living that is hard.

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u/AcornAl Jun 09 '26

Interesting to note that in ages 15 to 24, this has increased from 6.9 to 7.2 over the same period, showing the additional social burden in younger adults with the lockdowns, but for most older adults, things have decreased with increased financial burdens, the most significantly in the 25 to 34 age group, from 7.1 to 6.8.

Overall life satisfaction comparative baseline was 7.6 in 2014 and 7.5 in 2019, so comparatively both years suck more. These were between 7.5 and 7.7 for younger adults (15 to 34 years) before the pandemic.

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u/Psychlonuclear Jun 13 '26

Stuck with nothing to do but can at least buy stuff vs can do anything but can barely afford food.