Does Australia have a good quality of life?

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quality of life in australia

The short answer to whether or not Australia have a good quality of life? Absolutely!

Time and again, Australia performs well in quality of life reports. Even during times of hardship, like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let’s look at four recent indexes and reports that measure the quality of life to see how Australia performed compared to other countries around the world:

1. Better Life Index – OECD

The OECD Better Life Index measures the well-being of societies by looking at 11 topics. These topics reflect what the OECD identified as essential to well-being in terms of material living conditions and quality of life.

The 38 countries that form part of the Index are all OECD members and include the world’s most developed economies and several emerging economies, plus Brazil, Russia and South Africa.

What is the OECD?

The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and it’s an international organization that works to build better policies for better lives. The OECD’s goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity, and well-being.

Here’s how Australia performed:

Australia performs well in many dimensions of well-being relative to other countries in the Better Life Index. Australia outperforms the OECD average in income, jobs, education, health, environmental quality, social connections, civic engagement and life satisfaction.

  • Disposable income: Australia’s average household net adjusted disposable income per capita is USD37,433 a year, more than the OECD average of USD30,490 a year.
  • Employment: Roughly 73% of Australians between the ages of 15 and 64 have a paid job, compared to the OECD employment average of 66%
  • Education: The average Australian student scored 499 in reading literacy, maths and science in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This score is higher than the OECD average of 488.
  • Health: At birth, Australians enjoy a life expectancy of around 83 years, two years higher than the OECD average of 81 years.
  • Social Connections: There is a strong sense of community in Australia. A total of 93% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in time of need.
  • Life satisfaction: When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Australians gave it a 7.1 grade on average. This grade is higher than the OECD average of 6.7.

2. The Global Liveability Report 2021 – The Economist Intelligence Unit

The Global Liveability Report ranks 140 global cities for their urban quality of life based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure assessments. In 2021, the Report measured how COVID-19 affected liveability worldwide.

Who is the Economist Intelligence Unit?

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper. The EIU has a global team of economists, industry specialists, policy analysts and consultants.

Here’s how Australia’s cities performed:

The 10 most liveable cities in the world in 2021 were as follows:

  1. Auckland, New Zealand
  2. Osaka, Japan
  3. Adelaide, Australia
  4. Wellington, New Zealand
  5. Tokyo, Japan
  6. Perth, Australia
  7. Zurich, Switzerland
  8. Geneva, Switzerland
  9. Melbourne, Australia
  10. Brisbane, Australia

As you can see, Australia’s Adelaide is in the top three. The city scored full marks for healthcare and education.

Three more Australian cities – Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane – appear in the top 10. Both Perth and Brisbane also got perfect scores for healthcare and education.

It might sound strange, but Australia’s outstanding performance was mainly due to its tight border controls that allowed Australians to live relatively normal lives.

3. Quality of Life Index 2022 – Numbeo

Numbeo’s Quality of Life Index is an estimation of the overall quality of life. It considers purchasing power, pollution, house price to income ratio, cost of living, safety, healthcare, traffic commute time, and climate.

Who is Numbeo?

Numbeo is the world’s largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.

Here’s how Australia performed:

Australia is in 5th place on the latest Quality of Life Index from Numbeo. The rest of the top 10 are Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Austria, New Zealand and Norway.

When looking at the indices, Australia came in third place for purchasing power, which means your money will go further in Australia than most other countries. Australia also scored well in healthcare and property price to income ratio, coming in at 7th and 14th place.

4. Quality of Life Ranking – US News

The Quality of Life Ranking from the US News measures the quality of life in 78 countries worldwide. The Ranking considers a variety of factors, ranging from the state of the job market to how family-friendly a country is.

Who is US News?

US News & World Report is a digital media company dedicated to helping consumers, business leaders and policy officials make important decisions. They use world-class data and technology to publish independent reporting, rankings, journalism and advice.

Here’s how Australia performed:

According to the Quality of Life Ranking from the US news, Australia has the fifth-highest quality of life globally. This ranking placed Australia above the Netherlands, Finland, Germany and New Zealand in the top 10. The top three places went to Canada, Denmark and Sweden.
Australia scored particularly well for:

  • Being family-friendly
  • Having a good job market
  • Being economically stable
  • Being politically stable
  • Its well-developed public education and health systems
  • Being a safe country to live in

Why is Australia’s quality of life important?

Your quality of life matters because it directly affects your physical and mental well-being.

Someone who lives in a clean, safe and thriving country with quality healthcare, access to education and jobs, a stable economy, and plenty of opportunities will be much happier than a person living in a country that misses the mark on some or all of these indicators.

Thus, you want to ensure that when you move to another country it offers an enviable quality of life. You don’t want to be worse off than where you are – you want to maintain or improve your and your family’s quality of life.

As we saw, Australia’s quality of life is among the best in the world. When you live Down Under, your overall well-being will benefit tremendously!

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