The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index

Contrary to popular belief, wellbeing is different from ‘happiness’. Happiness can come and go in a moment, whereas wellbeing is a more stable state of being well, feeling satisfied and contented.

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index is based on average levels of satisfaction with various aspects of personal and national life. Satisfaction is expressed as a percentage score, where 0 percent is completely dissatisfied and 100 percent is completely satisfied. So a survey score of 76.5 percent on personal wellbeing means Australians, on average, feel 76.5 percent satisfied with their life.

Elements of the Personal Wellbeing Index are satisfaction with:

• Your health
• Your personal relationships
• How safe you feel
• Your standard of living
• What you are achieving in life
• Feeling part of the community
• Your future security

Elements of the National Wellbeing Index are satisfaction with:

• Australian social conditions
• Australian economic situation
• The state of the Australian environment
• Australian business
• National security
• Government

As well as looking at personal and national wellbeing, our 'Wellbeing of Australians' reports are released annually. These surveys explore issues of social importance as they relate to wellbeing. For example, survey 13 investigated caring at home, and the impact that providing informal care to a family member has on the wellbeing of carers. Other survey topics have included the effects of terrorism, personal financial debt, relationships and household structure, health and body weight and job security.

Explore the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index findings and articles here.

Measures of how 'well' we are doing as a nation have conventionally been based on economic considerations such as Gross Domestic Product, employment rates and housing prices. However, in an era when Australians are richer than ever, more than one million adults and 100,000 young people are experiencing depression every year. The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index investigates additional factors impacting on our lives, filling the void not covered by economic considerations and producing a more complete view of Australians’ wellbeing.

It also informs public debate about the sort of society we want to live in. It provides community organisations, government and business decision-makers with a credible measure of wellbeing for purposes ranging from strategic planning and policy making to providing every-day Australians with information they can use to improve their personal wellbeing. It engenders increasing awareness of important social issues impacting on the wellbeing of Australians.

The index is based on a working hypothesis that proposes wellbeing below a ‘normative range’ indicates a higher propensity to developing clinical depression. When people’s demands exceed their resources, this causes wellbeing to fall below the normative range. The index is therefore extremely useful at identifying groups of people in society whose demands are exceeding their resources and who require extra assistance if they are to avoid depression.

Why did Australian Unity develop the index?

Australian Unity is committed to making genuine contributions to society. The index is a demonstration of this commitment, by investigating factors that impact on the lives of every-day Australians.

Data from the index also provides insight into how we can help improve customers’ wellbeing and is extremely useful for informing public debate and policy makers about issues of national importance.

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index is conducted by Deakin University using the following methodology to ensure the integrity of our research.

Academic rigour

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index is one of the world’s leading measures of subjective wellbeing conducted at a national level. It is an academic study that adheres to rigorous recruitment and statistical standards, with each survey being approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at Deakin University. A team of academics within the School of Psychology at Deakin University is responsible for the recruitment of participants and data analysis.

Research method

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index is a national survey of a random, geographically representative sample of English-speaking Australian adults, aged 18 years and over.

An even gender split is sought to reflect the national population in all surveys. The age composition of the sample is not actively managed, but yields a breakdown similar to that of the national population as determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

For the first 14 years of data collection, surveys were conducted between two and four times per year, and have subsequently been conducted once per year.

Presentation and type of analyses

All personal and national wellbeing data have been converted to a percentage of scale maximum score, which standardises the results to a 0-100 percentage point scale. In this report the term “average” has been used in place of “normative” for ease of understanding.

These normative ranges have been calculated for the Personal Wellbeing Index, National Wellbeing Index, and each of their domains, by combining data across surveys. Analyses were conducted using Stata SE version 18, R and R studio.

A report for each survey, together with raw data and a data dictionary are available from “Cross-sectional surveys” at the Deakin University Australian Centre on Quality of Life website: http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#reports