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Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily OS.

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Speaker 2: This is the Daily OS. Oh now it makes sense.

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Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,

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Speaker 1: the twenty second of February.

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Speaker 2: I'm Zara, I'm Emma on today's podcast. Young Australians are

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Speaker 2: more likely to experience loneliness and psychological distress than any

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Speaker 2: other age group. That's according to the latest Kilda report,

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Speaker 2: and that stands for household income and labor dynamics in Australia.

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Speaker 2: For twenty years, Hilda has been interviewing the same network

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Speaker 2: of seventeen thousand Australians every year to compile results to

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Speaker 2: give us comprehensive insight into the lives of Australians. So

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Speaker 2: to help us understand more about what the latest findings

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Speaker 2: tell us about young Aussies, I'm talking to one of

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Speaker 2: the experts behind the data in today's deep dive. But first, Zara,

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Speaker 2: what's making headlines today.

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Speaker 1: Wages in Australia increase by four point two percent in

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Speaker 1: the year to December twenty twenty three, according to the

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Speaker 1: latest data from the ABS. It's the highest wage figure

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Speaker 1: since March two thousand and nine. Workers in the healthcare

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Speaker 1: industry saw the biggest increase in wages, while growth was

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Speaker 1: slower over the year in sectors like finance and insurance.

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Speaker 1: The four point two percent increase means rising wages slightly

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Speaker 1: outpaced rising prices for December, with inflation at four point

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Speaker 1: one percent.

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Speaker 2: Environment Minister Tanya plibisec has repeated threats to regulate fast fashion.

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Speaker 2: In a speech this week, Plibisec reaffirmed the government's commitment

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Speaker 2: to the proposed Seamless initiative, which hopes to improve clothing

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Speaker 2: recycling and would be funded by a four percent levy

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Speaker 2: on garments sald. Plibisek said that if retailers don't change

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Speaker 2: their practices, the government will intervene. The minister said it's

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Speaker 2: the responsibility of government and the fashion industry to examine

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Speaker 2: how to boost sustainability practices and extend the lifespan of clothing.

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Speaker 1: Thousands of junior doctors in South Korea have quit their

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Speaker 1: jobs in protest against plans to increase medical school student numbers.

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Speaker 1: The South Korean government proposed the measure to address a

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Speaker 1: doctor shortage in the country, but doctors have argued the

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Speaker 1: boosting medical school admissions will compromise the quality of South

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Speaker 1: Korea's medical education and services. Mass walk offs have stretched

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Speaker 1: the country's health system, with patients being transferred between hospitals

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Speaker 1: to accommodate surgery schedules.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, rooftop solar panels are expected to

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Speaker 2: generate enough power for twenty million homes by twenty fifty four.

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Speaker 2: According to new data. Research from Green Energy Markets predicts

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Speaker 2: that over the next thirty years, sola will produce enough

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Speaker 2: energy to meet one hundred percent of the current demand

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Speaker 2: on the grid. In the past decade, rooftop solar panel

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Speaker 2: installation has increased by three hundred and eighty percent.

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Speaker 1: The latest findings from the Hilda Survey were published this

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Speaker 1: month and they reveal some interesting and concerning trends when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the well being of young people. Emma,

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Speaker 1: we often hear very interesting research and findings discussed in

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Speaker 1: the media, So why did you want to talk about

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Speaker 1: this one specifically?

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Speaker 2: That's right, So I wanted to shine a light on

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Speaker 2: this one study in particular because it's pretty unique. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if the average person necessarily realizes, but when

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Speaker 2: you hear about a study in the media, you could

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Speaker 2: be talking about a sample size of one hundred or

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Speaker 2: two hundred or a few hundred people. The Hilda Survey

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Speaker 2: works with seventeen thousand respondents to provide I this picture

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Speaker 2: of what's going on in the lives of Aussie's by

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Speaker 2: asking those same people every year and their networks about

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Speaker 2: things like their finances, family and social life, and their

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Speaker 2: physical and mental health. But I thought we might need

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Speaker 2: to bring in one of the experts on this one.

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Speaker 2: So you are about to hear my conversation with Professor

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Speaker 2: Roger Wilkins. He's co director of the Hilda Survey project

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Speaker 2: and Deputy director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic

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Speaker 2: and Social Research, and he joins us, now we're talking

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Speaker 2: today about the Hilda Survey. But to start off with,

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Speaker 2: for those of us maybe less familiar with the survey

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Speaker 2: and what it's all about, can you give me a

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Speaker 2: sense of how it works, because it's quite a remarkable scope,

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Speaker 2: isn't it. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So HILDA stands for the Household Income and Labor Dynamics

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Speaker 3: in Australia study. So we started back in two thousand

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Speaker 3: and one and randomly selected thirteen thousand people from around

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Speaker 3: the country and interviewed them, and then we've been going

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Speaker 3: back to them every year ever since, so the last

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Speaker 3: we're in our twenty fourth year of doing this now

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Speaker 3: and asking them about all aspects of life in Australia,

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Speaker 3: really the household and family life, their health and well being,

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Speaker 3: their employment, their incomes, their wealth. The other thing though,

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Speaker 3: we do is that we follow the children of the

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Speaker 3: original response. If they have any children, we start following them,

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Speaker 3: and then we'll follow their children. So you really get

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Speaker 3: the Hilda gene when you're selected into our sample and

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Speaker 3: you pass it on to your kids, and hopefully if

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Speaker 3: Hilda is still going in one hundred years time, we'll

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Speaker 3: have this extraordinarily rich intergenerational history for Australia.

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Speaker 2: What's the ask of that sample size? How much do

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Speaker 2: they have to communicate? How in depth is the survey

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Speaker 2: we have we call.

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Speaker 3: A household questionnaire, where that's usually around about ten minutes.

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Speaker 3: It's asked of one household member, and then everyone over

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Speaker 3: fifteen years of age is interviewed for about thirty five

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Speaker 3: forty minute and then they have a what we call

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Speaker 3: a self completion questionnaire, which can be either pen and

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Speaker 3: paper or they can do that online, and that usually

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Speaker 3: takes at least half an hour as well, and so

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Speaker 3: that's an annual event, a bit like doing your taxes.

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Speaker 3: It just comes around every year. And I think a

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Speaker 3: lot of people they recognize the importance of the study

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Speaker 3: and that each of them represent twelve hundred other people

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Speaker 3: living in Australia, and I think a lot of people

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Speaker 3: just do it out of a sense of a civic duty.

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Speaker 2: I'd like to think it's probably a lot less arduous

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Speaker 2: than tax time. I think you're cutting yourself short of it. Then,

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Speaker 2: in terms of the latest findings, we've had a report

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Speaker 2: out this month. What were the big standouts from the

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Speaker 2: latest survey.

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Speaker 3: Probably the most concerning thing to come out of the

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Speaker 3: study is the rise in a measure of what we

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Speaker 3: call psychological distress, where you are feeling hopeless or worthless

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Speaker 3: or depressed, those sorts of things. And on this measure,

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Speaker 3: we've seen a real substantial rise since around about twenty eleven,

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Speaker 3: and it's been particularly concentrated amongst teenagers and people in

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Speaker 3: their early twenties, where we've had more than a doubling

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Speaker 3: of the prevalence. We've now got about forty percent of

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Speaker 3: people in the fifteen to twenty four age range that

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Speaker 3: are in psychological distress. All this rise has happened since

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Speaker 3: twenty eleven. It did accelerate a bit during COVID, which

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Speaker 3: is perhaps unsurprising. Wasn't a great time to be a

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Speaker 3: young person in Australia during the first couple of years

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Speaker 3: of lockdowns and restrictions on travel and the like. But

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Speaker 3: it's a longer running trend than that, and we don't

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Speaker 3: exactly know why it's growing. But I think you'd have

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Speaker 3: to say social media would be pretty strongly implicated, because

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Speaker 3: it's the rise in social media use really correlates very

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Speaker 3: closely with this rise in psychological distress, and we also

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Speaker 3: see that the groups who have the biggest increases in

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Speaker 3: psychological distress prevalence are also the ones that had the

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Speaker 3: biggest increase in social media use.

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Speaker 2: To ask you about another prevalent issue for young people, loneliness.

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Speaker 2: It's a conversation we've been having more and more, especially

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Speaker 2: on the other side of COVID. What did the survey

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Speaker 2: learn about young people and loneliness most recently?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So traditionally he would have had shown that it

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Speaker 3: was older people who were tended to be more lonely,

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Speaker 3: and that's sort of consistent with particularly single older people

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Speaker 3: who maybe their partner has died, they're a widow or widower.

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Speaker 3: And what we've actually seen over the last twenty plus

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Speaker 3: years is decline in loneliness amongst older people in the community,

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Speaker 3: which is obviously a heartening development. But again encountering that

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Speaker 3: is we've actually seen it going up amongst young people.

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Speaker 3: It was only edging up slowly up until COVID hit,

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Speaker 3: but then in the first two years of the pandemic

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Speaker 3: it shot up dramatically for fifteen to twenty four year

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Speaker 3: olds and not really much for other age groups. I

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Speaker 3: think that's speaks a lot to the fact that the

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Speaker 3: pandemic and the restrictions that a company have had a

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Speaker 3: lot more adverse impacts on young people than they did

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Speaker 3: on older people. I think that's because their social interaction

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Speaker 3: is much more outside of the home than it is

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Speaker 3: for other people. Particularly if you're living with a partner,

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Speaker 3: Much of your social interaction is with your partner, and

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Speaker 3: so lockdowns and restrictions on travel and so on didn't

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Speaker 3: interfere with that, whereas for people in their late teens

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Speaker 3: and early twenties, the restrictions were much more punitive.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think that younger group hasn't been able

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Speaker 2: to bounce back in this area, perhaps as other age

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Speaker 2: groups have on the other side of COVID.

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Speaker 3: It is a concern that they may not have rebounded

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Speaker 3: as quickly. And I guess because those formative links social

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Speaker 3: networks perhaps got broken during COVID, you know, they got

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Speaker 3: seven or they didn't form during COVID, and that could

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Speaker 3: have permanent, sort of scarring type effects on the social

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Speaker 3: lives of many young people. Obviously not all young people,

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Speaker 3: but perhaps a significant number of them. And that would

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Speaker 3: be the fear. I suppose that you could get this

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Speaker 3: long tail of adverse effects.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of young people and newer phenomenons. We had vaping data,

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Speaker 2: I think for the first time in this Hilda report.

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Speaker 2: What did you learn about the use of vapes?

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Speaker 3: Unsurprisingly that vape use is quite highly prevalent in the community,

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Speaker 3: at least prior to the beginning of this year. The

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Speaker 3: government moved to ban vapes other than via a medical prescription.

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Speaker 3: This data relates to the period before that legislation was passed.

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Speaker 3: It's mostly an activity associated with young people, so I

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Speaker 3: think we're sort of around a third of young people

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Speaker 3: have at least tried vaping. It sort of suggests that

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Speaker 3: perhaps the progress we thought we'd made on reducing nicotine

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Speaker 3: dependence in the form of smoking has been a little

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Speaker 3: bit undone by the rise of vaping. Cost has probably

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Speaker 3: been a big fator. I think it's a lot cheaper,

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Speaker 3: or at least it was a lot cheaper to vape

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Speaker 3: than it was to smoke, and it's not as smelly

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Speaker 3: as either, so that might also be an attractive feature

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Speaker 3: for many people.

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Speaker 2: What about financial stability security? What did this latest report

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Speaker 2: tell us about money and young people? You know, we're

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Speaker 2: hearing over and over again about the growing pressures of

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Speaker 2: cost of living. Everyone's feeling it. What did we learn

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Speaker 2: this time around.

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Speaker 3: We've seen I guess there's something of a continuation of

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Speaker 3: a trend where more and more young adults are staying

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Speaker 3: living with the parents, and I think that is very

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Speaker 3: much driven by cost of living consideration and a particularly

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Speaker 3: difficulty in getting into the housing market. But also it

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Speaker 3: is taking longer to get established in your career. So

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Speaker 3: many people eventually get into full time work and get

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Speaker 3: on the career ladder, but it's taking longer. They're spending

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Speaker 3: more time working casual jobs or jumping from fixed term

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Speaker 3: contract to fixed term contract. And so on, so that

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Speaker 3: causing people to I think, stay in the family home longer.

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Speaker 3: So it's a little bit gloomy for young people and

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Speaker 3: that we're used to it, that it's taken longer. But

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Speaker 3: there is a positive dimension to this as well, and

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Speaker 3: that to some extent there maybe isn't the same pressure

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Speaker 3: to get on with it as quickly as it once was.

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Speaker 3: That young people are saying, well, we've got you know,

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Speaker 3: our life expectancy is longer than ever. People are retiring

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Speaker 3: later than ever. Maybe I'll just enjoy my younger years

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Speaker 3: a bit more before I get down to the serious

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Speaker 3: business of adulting, forming a family and buying a home

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Speaker 3: and getting full time work.

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people will feel probably reassured

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Speaker 2: by this notion that there is an increase in young

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Speaker 2: people living at home for longer. I think since COVID,

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Speaker 2: people have maybe carried a bit of shame around something

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Speaker 2: like that. So I suppose talking about it, or seeing

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Speaker 2: that reflected in these numbers will probably ease a lot

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Speaker 2: of people that might be feeling maybe a little insecure

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Speaker 2: about admitting to their friends that they've gone back to

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Speaker 2: mom and dads.

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Speaker 3: That's right. I think that can really help with people's

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Speaker 3: ability to cope with the adversity that they've been through,

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Speaker 3: just to know that others are in the same boat. Sure.

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Speaker 2: One last question I wanted to ask you, Roger, is

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Speaker 2: about decline in marriages, but an increase in de facto relationships.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean? What is a de facto relationship

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Speaker 2: and what do we know about the rate of marriage?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean often it's called de facto marriage.

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Speaker 3: What it means is that you're living together with a partner,

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Speaker 3: but you're not legally married. In the eyes of the law,

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Speaker 3: you're basically treated as equivalent to legally married. And yes,

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Speaker 3: as you said, we've had the last twenty plus years,

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Speaker 3: we've had a decline in the proportion of adults who

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Speaker 3: are legally married. It's gone down from about fifty six

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Speaker 3: percent or about fifty percent over twenty years. Marriage is

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Speaker 3: still really popular, but that's still an appreciable decline. But

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Speaker 3: it doesn't mean we're partnering less or living with partners

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Speaker 3: any less. It's just that we've had this rise in

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Speaker 3: de facto couples. And I think there's a few things

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Speaker 3: that work there. I think, firstly, just going to what

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Speaker 3: I was saying before about doing things later. There's a

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Speaker 3: lot of people in their twenties now in de facto relationships,

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Speaker 3: so twenty years ago would have been legally married, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of those people in those de facto couples

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Speaker 3: will eventually get married. I'll just do it later, they'll

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Speaker 3: do it in their thirties. But we are seeing a

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Speaker 3: rise in de facto couples at all ages. So I

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Speaker 3: think there's also a social change here that it used

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Speaker 3: to be consocially unacceptable in many circles, at least to

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Speaker 3: be living with a partner out of wedlock, and certainly

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Speaker 3: to have children out of wedlock was frowned upon, and

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Speaker 3: I think that we've got past that to a considerable extent.

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Speaker 3: There's often a lot of expense in getting married. There's

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Speaker 3: a lot of pressure if you're going to get married,

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Speaker 3: to have a big wedding, and people might say, well,

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Speaker 3: we don't really need that piece of paper, and I

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Speaker 3: think we can do something better with that money than

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Speaker 3: pour it into a wedding, like you know, help get

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Speaker 3: a depositor on a house, for example. In this age

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Speaker 3: of Instagram and so on, there's possibly even greater pressure

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Speaker 3: to do a wedding in style, which makes it instagrammable,

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Speaker 3: and that then increases the expense of it and makes

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Speaker 3: it even less an attractive proposition. So I think all

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Speaker 3: those sorts of things are going on. I don't know

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Speaker 3: how much to attribute to each of those factors, but

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Speaker 3: I think they're all playing a role.

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Speaker 2: It hazard a guess that there may even be a

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Speaker 2: fair chunk of traumatized children of divorce who are taking

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Speaker 2: their time in that department.

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Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, although the big rise in divorce was actually

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Speaker 3: in the seventies, you know, following the introduction of no

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Speaker 3: fault divorce, we're actually seeing that once people do get married,

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Speaker 3: the rate of divorce is declining amongst them, and even

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Speaker 3: in de facto couples, we've seen a decline in the

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Speaker 3: breakdown of those relationships over the last twenty years. So yes,

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Speaker 3: people have maybe being a bit more cautious in the

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Speaker 3: relationships they get into that is having the benefit of

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Speaker 3: those relationship're tending to be more stable.

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Speaker 2: Now, Roger, casting your mind forward based on the trends

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Speaker 2: that you've seen this year, do you have any hot

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Speaker 2: predictions for us for next year, anything that you're keeping

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Speaker 2: an eye on. What are the data lovers, saying.

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Speaker 3: Look, I think we're all hanging out to see just

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Speaker 3: how much this cost of living crisis, how it's playing out,

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Speaker 3: and how people have responded and dealt with that. We

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Speaker 3: don't really have the data in yet for the full

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Speaker 3: impacts of the rise in rents, rise in the cost

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Speaker 3: of just about everything. I think that's the thing that

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Speaker 3: I'm most keen to unpeel how has that been played

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Speaker 3: out in all the different families across Australia.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. That was fascinating.

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Speaker 3: Nice to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on the Daily OS today.

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Speaker 1: so much. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a

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Speaker 1: proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkuton woman from Gadighl Country.

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