Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily OS. Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: the twenty second of February.
Speaker 2: I'm Zara, I'm Emma on today's podcast. Young Australians are
Speaker 2: more likely to experience loneliness and psychological distress than any
Speaker 2: other age group. That's according to the latest Kilda report,
Speaker 2: and that stands for household income and labor dynamics in Australia.
Speaker 2: For twenty years, Hilda has been interviewing the same network
Speaker 2: of seventeen thousand Australians every year to compile results to
Speaker 2: give us comprehensive insight into the lives of Australians. So
Speaker 2: to help us understand more about what the latest findings
Speaker 2: tell us about young Aussies, I'm talking to one of
Speaker 2: the experts behind the data in today's deep dive. But first, Zara,
Speaker 2: what's making headlines today.
Speaker 1: Wages in Australia increase by four point two percent in
Speaker 1: the year to December twenty twenty three, according to the
Speaker 1: latest data from the ABS. It's the highest wage figure
Speaker 1: since March two thousand and nine. Workers in the healthcare
Speaker 1: industry saw the biggest increase in wages, while growth was
Speaker 1: slower over the year in sectors like finance and insurance.
Speaker 1: The four point two percent increase means rising wages slightly
Speaker 1: outpaced rising prices for December, with inflation at four point
Speaker 1: one percent.
Speaker 2: Environment Minister Tanya plibisec has repeated threats to regulate fast fashion.
Speaker 2: In a speech this week, Plibisec reaffirmed the government's commitment
Speaker 2: to the proposed Seamless initiative, which hopes to improve clothing
Speaker 2: recycling and would be funded by a four percent levy
Speaker 2: on garments sald. Plibisek said that if retailers don't change
Speaker 2: their practices, the government will intervene. The minister said it's
Speaker 2: the responsibility of government and the fashion industry to examine
Speaker 2: how to boost sustainability practices and extend the lifespan of clothing.
Speaker 1: Thousands of junior doctors in South Korea have quit their
Speaker 1: jobs in protest against plans to increase medical school student numbers.
Speaker 1: The South Korean government proposed the measure to address a
Speaker 1: doctor shortage in the country, but doctors have argued the
Speaker 1: boosting medical school admissions will compromise the quality of South
Speaker 1: Korea's medical education and services. Mass walk offs have stretched
Speaker 1: the country's health system, with patients being transferred between hospitals
Speaker 1: to accommodate surgery schedules.
Speaker 2: And today's good news, rooftop solar panels are expected to
Speaker 2: generate enough power for twenty million homes by twenty fifty four.
Speaker 2: According to new data. Research from Green Energy Markets predicts
Speaker 2: that over the next thirty years, sola will produce enough
Speaker 2: energy to meet one hundred percent of the current demand
Speaker 2: on the grid. In the past decade, rooftop solar panel
Speaker 2: installation has increased by three hundred and eighty percent.
Speaker 1: The latest findings from the Hilda Survey were published this
Speaker 1: month and they reveal some interesting and concerning trends when
Speaker 1: it comes to the well being of young people. Emma,
Speaker 1: we often hear very interesting research and findings discussed in
Speaker 1: the media, So why did you want to talk about
Speaker 1: this one specifically?
Speaker 2: That's right, So I wanted to shine a light on
Speaker 2: this one study in particular because it's pretty unique. I
Speaker 2: don't know if the average person necessarily realizes, but when
Speaker 2: you hear about a study in the media, you could
Speaker 2: be talking about a sample size of one hundred or
Speaker 2: two hundred or a few hundred people. The Hilda Survey
Speaker 2: works with seventeen thousand respondents to provide I this picture
Speaker 2: of what's going on in the lives of Aussie's by
Speaker 2: asking those same people every year and their networks about
Speaker 2: things like their finances, family and social life, and their
Speaker 2: physical and mental health. But I thought we might need
Speaker 2: to bring in one of the experts on this one.
Speaker 2: So you are about to hear my conversation with Professor
Speaker 2: Roger Wilkins. He's co director of the Hilda Survey project
Speaker 2: and Deputy director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic
Speaker 2: and Social Research, and he joins us, now we're talking
Speaker 2: today about the Hilda Survey. But to start off with,
Speaker 2: for those of us maybe less familiar with the survey
Speaker 2: and what it's all about, can you give me a
Speaker 2: sense of how it works, because it's quite a remarkable scope,
Speaker 2: isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So HILDA stands for the Household Income and Labor Dynamics
Speaker 3: in Australia study. So we started back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and one and randomly selected thirteen thousand people from around
Speaker 3: the country and interviewed them, and then we've been going
Speaker 3: back to them every year ever since, so the last
Speaker 3: we're in our twenty fourth year of doing this now
Speaker 3: and asking them about all aspects of life in Australia,
Speaker 3: really the household and family life, their health and well being,
Speaker 3: their employment, their incomes, their wealth. The other thing though,
Speaker 3: we do is that we follow the children of the
Speaker 3: original response. If they have any children, we start following them,
Speaker 3: and then we'll follow their children. So you really get
Speaker 3: the Hilda gene when you're selected into our sample and
Speaker 3: you pass it on to your kids, and hopefully if
Speaker 3: Hilda is still going in one hundred years time, we'll
Speaker 3: have this extraordinarily rich intergenerational history for Australia.
Speaker 2: What's the ask of that sample size? How much do
Speaker 2: they have to communicate? How in depth is the survey
Speaker 2: we have we call.
Speaker 3: A household questionnaire, where that's usually around about ten minutes.
Speaker 3: It's asked of one household member, and then everyone over
Speaker 3: fifteen years of age is interviewed for about thirty five
Speaker 3: forty minute and then they have a what we call
Speaker 3: a self completion questionnaire, which can be either pen and
Speaker 3: paper or they can do that online, and that usually
Speaker 3: takes at least half an hour as well, and so
Speaker 3: that's an annual event, a bit like doing your taxes.
Speaker 3: It just comes around every year. And I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people they recognize the importance of the study
Speaker 3: and that each of them represent twelve hundred other people
Speaker 3: living in Australia, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: just do it out of a sense of a civic duty.
Speaker 2: I'd like to think it's probably a lot less arduous
Speaker 2: than tax time. I think you're cutting yourself short of it. Then,
Speaker 2: in terms of the latest findings, we've had a report
Speaker 2: out this month. What were the big standouts from the
Speaker 2: latest survey.
Speaker 3: Probably the most concerning thing to come out of the
Speaker 3: study is the rise in a measure of what we
Speaker 3: call psychological distress, where you are feeling hopeless or worthless
Speaker 3: or depressed, those sorts of things. And on this measure,
Speaker 3: we've seen a real substantial rise since around about twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: and it's been particularly concentrated amongst teenagers and people in
Speaker 3: their early twenties, where we've had more than a doubling
Speaker 3: of the prevalence. We've now got about forty percent of
Speaker 3: people in the fifteen to twenty four age range that
Speaker 3: are in psychological distress. All this rise has happened since
Speaker 3: twenty eleven. It did accelerate a bit during COVID, which
Speaker 3: is perhaps unsurprising. Wasn't a great time to be a
Speaker 3: young person in Australia during the first couple of years
Speaker 3: of lockdowns and restrictions on travel and the like. But
Speaker 3: it's a longer running trend than that, and we don't
Speaker 3: exactly know why it's growing. But I think you'd have
Speaker 3: to say social media would be pretty strongly implicated, because
Speaker 3: it's the rise in social media use really correlates very
Speaker 3: closely with this rise in psychological distress, and we also
Speaker 3: see that the groups who have the biggest increases in
Speaker 3: psychological distress prevalence are also the ones that had the
Speaker 3: biggest increase in social media use.
Speaker 2: To ask you about another prevalent issue for young people, loneliness.
Speaker 2: It's a conversation we've been having more and more, especially
Speaker 2: on the other side of COVID. What did the survey
Speaker 2: learn about young people and loneliness most recently?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So traditionally he would have had shown that it
Speaker 3: was older people who were tended to be more lonely,
Speaker 3: and that's sort of consistent with particularly single older people
Speaker 3: who maybe their partner has died, they're a widow or widower.
Speaker 3: And what we've actually seen over the last twenty plus
Speaker 3: years is decline in loneliness amongst older people in the community,
Speaker 3: which is obviously a heartening development. But again encountering that
Speaker 3: is we've actually seen it going up amongst young people.
Speaker 3: It was only edging up slowly up until COVID hit,
Speaker 3: but then in the first two years of the pandemic
Speaker 3: it shot up dramatically for fifteen to twenty four year
Speaker 3: olds and not really much for other age groups. I
Speaker 3: think that's speaks a lot to the fact that the
Speaker 3: pandemic and the restrictions that a company have had a
Speaker 3: lot more adverse impacts on young people than they did
Speaker 3: on older people. I think that's because their social interaction
Speaker 3: is much more outside of the home than it is
Speaker 3: for other people. Particularly if you're living with a partner,
Speaker 3: Much of your social interaction is with your partner, and
Speaker 3: so lockdowns and restrictions on travel and so on didn't
Speaker 3: interfere with that, whereas for people in their late teens
Speaker 3: and early twenties, the restrictions were much more punitive.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that younger group hasn't been able
Speaker 2: to bounce back in this area, perhaps as other age
Speaker 2: groups have on the other side of COVID.
Speaker 3: It is a concern that they may not have rebounded
Speaker 3: as quickly. And I guess because those formative links social
Speaker 3: networks perhaps got broken during COVID, you know, they got
Speaker 3: seven or they didn't form during COVID, and that could
Speaker 3: have permanent, sort of scarring type effects on the social
Speaker 3: lives of many young people. Obviously not all young people,
Speaker 3: but perhaps a significant number of them. And that would
Speaker 3: be the fear. I suppose that you could get this
Speaker 3: long tail of adverse effects.
Speaker 2: Speaking of young people and newer phenomenons. We had vaping data,
Speaker 2: I think for the first time in this Hilda report.
Speaker 2: What did you learn about the use of vapes?
Speaker 3: Unsurprisingly that vape use is quite highly prevalent in the community,
Speaker 3: at least prior to the beginning of this year. The
Speaker 3: government moved to ban vapes other than via a medical prescription.
Speaker 3: This data relates to the period before that legislation was passed.
Speaker 3: It's mostly an activity associated with young people, so I
Speaker 3: think we're sort of around a third of young people
Speaker 3: have at least tried vaping. It sort of suggests that
Speaker 3: perhaps the progress we thought we'd made on reducing nicotine
Speaker 3: dependence in the form of smoking has been a little
Speaker 3: bit undone by the rise of vaping. Cost has probably
Speaker 3: been a big fator. I think it's a lot cheaper,
Speaker 3: or at least it was a lot cheaper to vape
Speaker 3: than it was to smoke, and it's not as smelly
Speaker 3: as either, so that might also be an attractive feature
Speaker 3: for many people.
Speaker 2: What about financial stability security? What did this latest report
Speaker 2: tell us about money and young people? You know, we're
Speaker 2: hearing over and over again about the growing pressures of
Speaker 2: cost of living. Everyone's feeling it. What did we learn
Speaker 2: this time around.
Speaker 3: We've seen I guess there's something of a continuation of
Speaker 3: a trend where more and more young adults are staying
Speaker 3: living with the parents, and I think that is very
Speaker 3: much driven by cost of living consideration and a particularly
Speaker 3: difficulty in getting into the housing market. But also it
Speaker 3: is taking longer to get established in your career. So
Speaker 3: many people eventually get into full time work and get
Speaker 3: on the career ladder, but it's taking longer. They're spending
Speaker 3: more time working casual jobs or jumping from fixed term
Speaker 3: contract to fixed term contract. And so on, so that
Speaker 3: causing people to I think, stay in the family home longer.
Speaker 3: So it's a little bit gloomy for young people and
Speaker 3: that we're used to it, that it's taken longer. But
Speaker 3: there is a positive dimension to this as well, and
Speaker 3: that to some extent there maybe isn't the same pressure
Speaker 3: to get on with it as quickly as it once was.
Speaker 3: That young people are saying, well, we've got you know,
Speaker 3: our life expectancy is longer than ever. People are retiring
Speaker 3: later than ever. Maybe I'll just enjoy my younger years
Speaker 3: a bit more before I get down to the serious
Speaker 3: business of adulting, forming a family and buying a home
Speaker 3: and getting full time work.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people will feel probably reassured
Speaker 2: by this notion that there is an increase in young
Speaker 2: people living at home for longer. I think since COVID,
Speaker 2: people have maybe carried a bit of shame around something
Speaker 2: like that. So I suppose talking about it, or seeing
Speaker 2: that reflected in these numbers will probably ease a lot
Speaker 2: of people that might be feeling maybe a little insecure
Speaker 2: about admitting to their friends that they've gone back to
Speaker 2: mom and dads.
Speaker 3: That's right. I think that can really help with people's
Speaker 3: ability to cope with the adversity that they've been through,
Speaker 3: just to know that others are in the same boat. Sure.
Speaker 2: One last question I wanted to ask you, Roger, is
Speaker 2: about decline in marriages, but an increase in de facto relationships.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? What is a de facto relationship
Speaker 2: and what do we know about the rate of marriage?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean often it's called de facto marriage.
Speaker 3: What it means is that you're living together with a partner,
Speaker 3: but you're not legally married. In the eyes of the law,
Speaker 3: you're basically treated as equivalent to legally married. And yes,
Speaker 3: as you said, we've had the last twenty plus years,
Speaker 3: we've had a decline in the proportion of adults who
Speaker 3: are legally married. It's gone down from about fifty six
Speaker 3: percent or about fifty percent over twenty years. Marriage is
Speaker 3: still really popular, but that's still an appreciable decline. But
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean we're partnering less or living with partners
Speaker 3: any less. It's just that we've had this rise in
Speaker 3: de facto couples. And I think there's a few things
Speaker 3: that work there. I think, firstly, just going to what
Speaker 3: I was saying before about doing things later. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of people in their twenties now in de facto relationships,
Speaker 3: so twenty years ago would have been legally married, and
Speaker 3: a lot of those people in those de facto couples
Speaker 3: will eventually get married. I'll just do it later, they'll
Speaker 3: do it in their thirties. But we are seeing a
Speaker 3: rise in de facto couples at all ages. So I
Speaker 3: think there's also a social change here that it used
Speaker 3: to be consocially unacceptable in many circles, at least to
Speaker 3: be living with a partner out of wedlock, and certainly
Speaker 3: to have children out of wedlock was frowned upon, and
Speaker 3: I think that we've got past that to a considerable extent.
Speaker 3: There's often a lot of expense in getting married. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure if you're going to get married,
Speaker 3: to have a big wedding, and people might say, well,
Speaker 3: we don't really need that piece of paper, and I
Speaker 3: think we can do something better with that money than
Speaker 3: pour it into a wedding, like you know, help get
Speaker 3: a depositor on a house, for example. In this age
Speaker 3: of Instagram and so on, there's possibly even greater pressure
Speaker 3: to do a wedding in style, which makes it instagrammable,
Speaker 3: and that then increases the expense of it and makes
Speaker 3: it even less an attractive proposition. So I think all
Speaker 3: those sorts of things are going on. I don't know
Speaker 3: how much to attribute to each of those factors, but
Speaker 3: I think they're all playing a role.
Speaker 2: It hazard a guess that there may even be a
Speaker 2: fair chunk of traumatized children of divorce who are taking
Speaker 2: their time in that department.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, although the big rise in divorce was actually
Speaker 3: in the seventies, you know, following the introduction of no
Speaker 3: fault divorce, we're actually seeing that once people do get married,
Speaker 3: the rate of divorce is declining amongst them, and even
Speaker 3: in de facto couples, we've seen a decline in the
Speaker 3: breakdown of those relationships over the last twenty years. So yes,
Speaker 3: people have maybe being a bit more cautious in the
Speaker 3: relationships they get into that is having the benefit of
Speaker 3: those relationship're tending to be more stable.
Speaker 2: Now, Roger, casting your mind forward based on the trends
Speaker 2: that you've seen this year, do you have any hot
Speaker 2: predictions for us for next year, anything that you're keeping
Speaker 2: an eye on. What are the data lovers, saying.
Speaker 3: Look, I think we're all hanging out to see just
Speaker 3: how much this cost of living crisis, how it's playing out,
Speaker 3: and how people have responded and dealt with that. We
Speaker 3: don't really have the data in yet for the full
Speaker 3: impacts of the rise in rents, rise in the cost
Speaker 3: of just about everything. I think that's the thing that
Speaker 3: I'm most keen to unpeel how has that been played
Speaker 3: out in all the different families across Australia.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time. That was fascinating.
Speaker 3: Nice to be with you.
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