Feelings matter. That’s why for over 25 years, the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index has asked Australian adults how satisfied they feel about their lives and life in Australia. It’s a simple but powerful way to understand how we are faring as a country.
This year’s index tracked Australians’ wellbeing in a challenging year at home and abroad. We also set out to understand how Australians see life playing out for future generations.
More than 10,000 Australians took part in the survey in April and May, just before the federal budget. In September, we went back to almost 1,500 of the same people to see what had changed.
How Australians feel about personal wellbeing in 2026
Compared with 2025, personal wellbeing held steady.
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In April–May, the average score on the Personal Wellbeing Index was 67.2 out of 100. This assesses satisfaction across seven areas of personal life:
Standard of livingHealthAchieving in lifeRelationshipsSafetyCommunity connectednessFuture security
By September, however, the index had slipped 1.1 points.
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Satisfaction with personal safety and future security, which had already dropped in April-May, fell further. Satisfaction with standard of living also declined.
The survey moved from phone to online in 2024. Online scores tend to be lower because people answer differently in private than when speaking to an interviewer. Trends are best read within each survey method.
Feelings about national wellbeing took a hit
We also surveyed people about their feelings about life in Australia more generally, via a different measure we call the National Wellbeing Index. This assesses satisfaction across six areas:
The economic situationState of the natural environmentSocial conditionsGovernmentBusinessNational security
Compared to personal wellbeing, Australians’ feelings about national wellbeing took a bigger hit. In April-May, the National Wellbeing Index fell 3.2 points from 2025 to 54.8 out of 100.
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Last year’s survey saw a rise in national wellbeing. This was driven mainly by higher satisfaction with the economy and the government.
This year, however, those were the areas that dropped most, and they hadn’t recovered by September.
Averages can hide who is doing it toughest
Australians experiencing unemployment or those on low incomes reported some of the lowest wellbeing of any population groups.
This gap isn’t new. The index has documented it for over 25 years, and it has only meaningfully narrowed once: during the pandemic, when income support payments were doubled.
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Young adults are also struggling. We also found that:
56.1 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds reported high or very high psychological distress45.7 per cent felt lonely at least some of the time.How will future Australians fare?
This year we also asked Australians to look ahead.
We asked about five societal challenges that closely map to the transitions identified in the government’s latest Intergenerational Report:
Housing costsArtificial intelligenceAccess to healthcareClimate changeGlobal political instability
People saw every challenge as hitting future generations harder than themselves.
Housing stood out, with more than four in five (83.4 per cent) believing housing costs would have a high negative impact on future generations.
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Younger Australians expect to feel it, too: seven in ten of those aged 18 to 34 expected housing costs to negatively affect their own lives.
The May federal budget included reforms aimed at intergenerational equity, particularly by addressing housing costs and availability.
But when we asked again in September, views on housing hadn’t shifted.
What did shift was the share of people expecting AI to negatively impact their lives. This rose 9.3 percentage points in four months, and by 15.1 points among people aged 65 and over.
A vision for the future
We also asked Australians to tell us, in their own words, what kind of Australia they want for future generations.
Across almost 10,000 responses, a broadly shared vision emerged. Australians want a country that is safe and socially connected, environmentally sustainable, fair, affordable and economically secure.
Almost six in ten (58.1 per cent) wrote about at least one of four themes:
SafetyEnvironmental and climate actionImproved cost of living and financial securityA strong economy
That share held steady regardless of age, income, gender, location, education or language spoken at home. It is a genuine reminder that there is more connection between us than disconnection.
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Australians also feel this future is partly theirs to shape; almost two in three (62.7 per cent) said they feel responsible for the wellbeing of future generations.
That’s a striking result in these challenging times when, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently put it, Australians face a test of whether we “turn on each other” or “change and adapt and reform and prosper together through all of this uncertainty”.
But that responsibility doesn’t sit with individuals alone. The challenge for policymakers, communities, and institutions is to match Australians’ forward-looking outlook with legislated mechanisms to turn this much needed long-term thinking into reality.
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The federal government’s Measuring What Matters framework already tracks much of what Australians described to us, from safety and sustainability to financial security and a strong economy.
But measuring wellbeing isn’t the same as acting on it, and there’s currently no mechanism to ensure the framework is used in decision-making.
Australians have been clear about the country they want to hand on. Now we need to make sure the decisions that shape it are measured against that vision.
Georgie Frykberg is the project manager at Centre for Social and Early Emotional Development.
Kate Lycett is a senior lecturer in Child Health and NHMRC early career fellow.
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