Australians were less engaged in their communities, lonelier, unhappier and less satisfied with life, even before the present turmoil. But there is cause for hope, writes Dr James O’Donnell…
Look around the world and you would think the world is burning and Australian society is burning with it.
Wars and conflict in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa and most other continents, deep political polarisation, racial tension and a prolonged cost-of-living crisis stand out at the international level and combine with and propel homegrown racial hatred and violence toward Jewish, Muslim, Indigenous and Indian Australians (and almost everyone else).
This creates a toxic mix, bad for people’s sense of connection, belonging, empathy and trust in each other. In sum, bad for one of the political buzzwords of 2026: Australia’s social cohesion.
And while the Mapping Social Cohesion study points a certain resilience in Australia’s social cohesion, there are clear indicators of a society under strain: financial pressures, partisan disaffection with the political system and negativity toward different immigrant and faith groups and where racism and financial deprivation impacts people’s sense of self, security and belonging.
In truth though, life goes on for most people and the external factors that swirl around us do not necessarily deeply penetrate our daily lives or how we interact in our communities and with our family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. In fact, that is where much of the resilience of our social cohesion resides.
However, if survey data are to be believed, we are witnessing some longer-term shifts in our social lives – for the worse. Australians seem to have turned inward to an extent over the last 10-15 years, becoming more insular, and not in a way that people are happy about.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ General Social Survey, face-to-face and other contact with family and friends have been declining over the last decade and a half, along with participation and volunteering in social and community activities.
This is accompanied by evidence of rising social disconnection and loneliness recorded in the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) survey, increasing pessimism and a declining sense of belonging in Mapping Social Cohesion and declining trust between people on ANU Poll.
Perhaps of most concern, the General Social Survey, Mapping Social Cohesion, ANU Poll and the World Happiness Report all suggest that Australians’ sense of happiness and life satisfaction has declined over the last 10-15 years. Happiness is not exactly in freefall, but it has steadily eroded over the years.
The importance of these declines are debatable. Ostensibly though, they suggest that even just entering the present turmoil, Australians have been less engaged in their communities and social networks and feeling lonelier and unhappier. People are hunkering down – and are sadder for it.
Economic and financial strain, the pressures of modern life and work, big social and generational change and the influence of social media are some of the main suspects in explaining why, but cannot on their own explain all.
Financial stress has been increasing, not just since the emergence of current cost-of-living pressures but over the last 15 years – set amidst stagnant real wages and deteriorating housing affordability.
Financial stress is also a strong predictor of people’s sense of belonging, trust, fairness and intercultural attitudes. And yet, declining belonging seems to cut across all social groups and classes.
Around one-third of people report feeling often or always rushed for time – higher for women and parents – perhaps reflecting the pressures of modern life, though in fairness, time stress does not seem to be getting worse.
In terms of generational change, younger adults have their own ways of connecting with the world. Even so, the biggest declines in belonging and life satisfaction are occurring within younger generations: they are becoming less happy and less connected over time as much as they just look different at the outset from older generations.
Social media meanwhile continues to create echo chambers and propagate misinformation and hatred. And yet, most social media users are reasonably discerning, they trust social media companies the least among societal institutions and, in general, distinguish their views from what is coming through their social media feeds.
In sum, no one factor explains the longer term erosion of social wellbeing, nor the divisiveness or disaffection of recent times. It may well come back to the toxic mix: take a society already under social and economic strain, add in current global turmoil and the result is not surprising.
Paradoxically though, herein lies a seed of optimism. People’s disaffection and disconnection are a response to the world around them. Address the underlying problems and sources of social and economic insecurity and the situation may steadily, if not quickly, improve.
Australia’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic was a case in point. When people felt protected in terms of their health and economic wellbeing during the pandemic, they became more trusting, more emotionally connected to their communities and more accepting of differences and diversity.
Equally important, racial hatred and violence is in urgent need of a response but still does not reflect majority opinion. We await the release of the Mapping Social Cohesion 2026 results in November to tell us more, but even in mid-2025 as the March for Australia rallies and support for One Nation were preparing for take-off, Australians were, by and large, at ease with its ethnic and cultural diversity, if not wholly supportive.
To be sure, there are concerning levels of prejudice and discrimination towards those of different migrant backgrounds and faiths, but people generally agree, immigration, diversity and multiculturalism has been good for Australia, its economy and culture and it does not greatly matter where you were born to be a true Australian.
Nice statements along these lines do not make for a happy, cohesive and harmonious multicultural society. It takes much more than that. But this symbolic support is a useful platform. And with investments in social and community infrastructure and economic security and wellbeing, we can start cooking up something more palatable for Australia’s social cohesion.
Dr James O’Donnell is a Demographer at the Australian National University (ANU) with a research focus on social cohesion and wellbeing and their longitudinal and life course relationships with migration, population dynamics and social and economic inequalities.
This article was first published in The Klaxon and 360info.org
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“Australia’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic was a case in point. When people felt protected in terms of their health and economic wellbeing during the pandemic, they became more trusting, more emotionally connected to their communities and more accepting of differences and diversity.”
This was not, as stated, “a case in point”, it was THE point!!!
When we ditch the economic policies that protect profits and start protecting society, the social cohesion indicators will go through the roof.
Why can’t academics say this?
What are they afraid of?
Or are we all in favour of helping society as long as our comfortable lifestyle is not affected?
@ Steve, you answered the question yourself “Or are we all in favour of helping society as long as our comfortable lifestyle is not affected?”
This is not the country that I grew up in, it’s become harsh, selfish, greedy and uncaring for anything and anybody.
The occasional positive reinforcement comes not from those who claim to be leaders, – business leaders, politicians et al – but from the many who are ‘nothing’ according to their criteria of who matters and who doesn’t, that supports others who are also suffering.
BTW, not all wealthy people are mean, some are actually very generous, they don’t just say it, they live it and don’t blanket social media for their PR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FLjT5V5Hog
Or are we all in favour of helping society as long as our comfortable lifestyle is not affected?
For the majority of people, unfortunately it seems to be so. Humanity sucks.
”Australians seem to have turned inward to an extent over the last 10-15 years, becoming more insular, and not in a way that people are happy about.”
The above time frame goes back to 2011 to 2015 key dates in Australian politics.
In 2007 Labor won the feral election with ”Kevin 07” and the Murdochracy maintained its venomous misrepresentation of history.
In 2010 INDEPENDENTS Tony Windsor (New England) and Rob Oakeshott (Lyne) gifted Australia with a Julia Gillard a LABOR government because they believed that Toxic RAbbott was unfit to be PM.
The Murdochracy was not happy. The NOtional$ in New England were not happy because they had been swept aside in favour of bringing the electorate into the 21st century rather than stagnate back into the 19th century.
So 2007 to 2013 was a reasonably happy, low stress period, except for the on-going whingeing of the Murdochracy through loud mouth LIARBRAL$ commentators misrepresenting the fact to the about 3% audience watching SkyLie rather than proper television channels.
Then the 2013 feral elections gave New England Beetrooter and Australia Toxic RAbbott, Malformed Turdball and Scummo the sneak thief for all occasions. There was a repeat performance in 2016 despite the dead hand of LIARBRAL$ incompetence practicing corruption ($80 million empty glass of MDB water), in-fighting between unworthy contenders for the leadership and any number of scandals that the media glossed over, ”nothing to see here”.
This 2016 return of the COALition misgovernment is likely the major cause of the current lack of social cohesion, encouraged by the Murdocracy and now amplified by the PHONeys sponsored by the billionaires club. Anybody for free access to the financial resources of a political party??
Six years of self-serving incompetence, financial scandals and selling out of Australian sovereignty is sufficient to reduce social cohesion, especially when the elected representatives of the voters are taking marching orders from foreign owned international accountancy firms intent upon maximising their profits for the benefit of the unscrupulous partners.
Perhaps it is time to cancel the publication licences of the Murdochracy for failing to be a newspaper or media outlet of record, which means that those entities are required to accuracy and objectively report on ”news”, rather than bias reporting to suit the ambitions of foreign owned multinational corporations.
IMO it came with ascendancy of Howard and Murdoch with an eye on ageing demographics, promoting Atlas Koch climate science denial & segregation economics, with anti-immigrant now MAGA Tanton Network (informs Fox News).
Murdoch with Meta and YouTube have been running a US style mid western strategy to target white, middle aged+, low info and regional voters.
The desired outcome, noticed by visitors to regions and some urban communities, palpable anger and confusion over non issues eg NOM and immigration, The Voice, clean energy etc..
Replicates the US and earlier with Brexit test run to first inspire collective narcissism and recklessness about the future, with pensioner populism, before demographic change brings ‘the great replacement’…..
I recommend that readers have a look at these studies and survey results for themselves. Yes, some measures have declined over time, but there is no precipitate drop in the various results.
The foul fartery of the runaway filthite oppressor Merde Dog, now a Yankee swiney slaver tax bludging, wife dumping, phone hacking, liesflogging parasitic press pervert pox, was a bad time for this nation, as Stupido Jack Howard was harnessed to do dirty selfish tricks for supremacists as a takeover class. Australia ceased to advance, unfair. Conservative POX.
Geezers still struggling to understand the modern world
Geezer is right to be worried.
From The Guardian today:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/05/europe-unable-sustain-war-of-attrition-russia-defence-officials-say
The headline reads — Europe would not be able to sustain war of attrition with Russia, defence officials say
Ahh, thank goodness the sensible reader thinks, sanity is finally creeping in to European thinking.
But as soon as you read further, the lies and delusions kick in.
Defence planners working with Nato fear that if war broke out with Russia, Europe could not currently sustain a prolonged war of attrition owing to a public lack of war readiness….The pessimism reflects concern that Russia may be winning a so-called hybrid war with Europe, weakening the options available to Nato war planners in the event of military conflict…The surge in support for the populist forces in Europe’s main military states is also endangering proposals for a group of five European countries, including the UK, to take on a new coordination role…Defence officials said the European public may not have the appetite for a prolonged war, requiring Nato to focus its plans on a relatively quick conflict….One recent British cabinet member admitted the west had been “crap” at educating its public about the scale of the hybrid conflict with Russia. Another UK diplomat claimed successive British prime ministers had done nothing to explain the scale of the threat.
“Explain the scale of the threat”???
Any threat from Russia that exists arose from Europe not fulfilling its obligations under Minsk 1 and 2, whereby the Donbass was to remain part of Ukraine as an autonomous region. In other words, no conflict and no need for Russia to intervene.
“requiring Nato to focus its plans on a relatively quick conflict”???
Europe’s failure to enforce Minsk 1 and 2, it’s provision to Ukraine of funds, technical advice, military intelligence, missiles to penetrate deep into Russia, and “its plans on a relatively quick conflict” shows that Europe wants war with Russia.
We have to ask “Why”.
With Europe intent on prodding the Russian Bear, and the US intent on prodding the Chinese Dragon, the world is teetering on the edge of an abyss.
Steve Witkof and Jared Kushner are hard at it as peace envoys in Russia and currently enroute for Ukraine.
The least you can expect is a plan for an immediate ceasefire and a program of ongoing peace talks – just joking!
These two luminaries, a dodgy son-in-law and a Trump golf buddy are the best negotiators the US could come up with…………what could possibly be achieved, what could possibly go wrong?
Terry, a commenter on another blog I frequent always finishes off with “it’s fake, it’s all fake!”
He is correct.