Overall life satisfaction

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Metric

Overall life satisfaction

Why this matters

Considering both subjective and objective measures of what matters to people in Australia is important to understanding wellbeing.

Overall life satisfaction is a summary measure of subjective wellbeing, reflecting how satisfied people are feeling with their lives in general.

Progress

In 2020, overall life satisfaction was, on average, 7.2 out of 10. In 2019, this figure was 7.5 and in 2014, it was 7.6.

The ABS General Social Survey (GSS) measures overall life satisfaction for people aged 15 years and over on a scale from 0 to 10 - where 0 means ‘not at all satisfied’ and 10 means ‘completely satisfied’.

The 2020 GSS was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic which saw widespread restrictions on the Australian population as well as a change from face-to-face interviewing to online/telephone interviewing. These circumstances may have influenced the 2020 results.

More recent data from HILDA presented below shows that overall life satisfaction is continuing at stable levels.

From 2026 onwards, this indicator will be updated annually with data from the expanded GSS.

Differences across groups

In 2020, overall life satisfaction out of 10, on average, was:

  • higher for people aged 70 years and over than people aged 15-24 years (7.9 compared with 6.9)
  • lower for people with a mental health condition than for people with no mental health condition (5.8 compared with 7.4)
  • lower for people with a disability than people with no disability (6.7 compared with 7.4)
  • lower for people with a long term health condition than people with no long term health conditions (6.9 compared with 7.4)
  • lower for people who described themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual than people who described themselves as heterosexual (6.3 compared with 7.2).
  1. HILDA results are custom analysis of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services and managed by the Melbourne Institute.
Data Source
ABS General Social Survey: Summary Results, Australia - Table 8.1

Disaggregation

Further information on how life satisfaction scores differ across population groups is available in ABS General Social Survey summary results.

  • Sex
  • Age
  • Migrant status
  • Health status
  • Disability status
  • Sexual orientation.