The number of working-age Australians receiving government income support has dropped to 13 per cent, down from 24 per cent in 2001, according to new data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The decline represents a significant reduction in welfare dependency over two decades, even as mental health challenges among young people have intensified.
The HILDA survey, which has tracked more than 17,000 people across Australia annually since 2001, released its 2024 data this week. The findings paint a complex picture of Australian life: fewer people relying on government payments, more women in higher education, but troubling signs for youth mental health and cognitive performance.
Parental Leave Expansion
Women took more than four months of paid parental leave on average in 2024, while fathers took four weeks. The increases could be due to the federal government extending paid parental leave during this period. The expansion represents a significant shift in workplace dynamics and family policy, with potential long-term implications for labor force participation and government expenditure.
Australians aged 65 and over rely more on benefits than working-age adults, but that share has also dropped across the survey period. The reduction in dependency among seniors suggests improved retirement planning and private savings, though the data doesn't specify the underlying causes.
Youth Mental Health Decline
Self-reported mental health for women across most age groups has declined since 2001, particularly for young women aged 15 to 24. The trend among men is similar, with younger age groups reporting declining mental health across decades, although levels are overall higher than for women. Men aged 65 and over bucked the general trend and saw an increase in self-reported mental health.
In the survey's cognitive tests, average performance declined for Australians aged 15 to 24 in both the backwards digits span test and the symbol digits modalities test. Older Australians performed better on those tests compared with 2012, and those aged 45 and older did better on average on both tests across time. The cognitive decline among youth raises questions about education quality and the impact of technology on developing minds.
Housing and Economic Pressures
The proportion of young people living with their parents has climbed since the turn of the century, with the increase greatest for 18- to 21-year-olds, lifting to 85 per cent. Most of that growth happened up until the mid-2010s and has remained fairly stable since. The trend reflects housing affordability challenges that have priced young adults out of independent living.
Housing stress has consistently been higher for single parents with children, but it has also surged for single older men and couples with children in recent years. The share of Australians over 15 who experienced food insecurity increased in four years, with more people reporting they could not obtain adequate food in the past year because of a lack of money.
Average hourly earnings for workers have risen since 2001, despite a surge and dip around the COVID-19 pandemic due to changes in working hours, but the gender pay gap has persisted, with women earning less on average. The percentage of people with a university degree has risen across decades for all ages and genders, but it has risen much faster for women, with the biggest gender gap emerging in the 35-44 age groups.
Social Media and Relationships
The percentage of people above the at-risk threshold for problematic social media use was greatest for teenagers and steadily declined across older ages. Relationship quality increases with age, but not before it drops in the 30s and 40s, and women consistently report lower relationship quality than men across their lifetimes. Even at the lowest point for women, the average rating for relationship quality is about four out of five.
Why This Matters:
The sharp reduction in welfare dependency from 24 per cent to 13 per cent among working-age Australians represents a fiscal success story, reducing government expenditure and encouraging self-sufficiency. However, the simultaneous decline in youth mental health and cognitive performance suggests that economic independence hasn't translated to overall wellbeing. The expansion of paid parental leave, while supporting families, raises questions about long-term fiscal sustainability and business competitiveness. Housing stress affecting couples with children and single older men indicates that market pressures are affecting traditionally stable demographics, not just vulnerable groups. The data suggests Australia's social fabric faces challenges that can't be solved by government programs alone, requiring market-based solutions to housing affordability and community-level responses to mental health and social isolation.