Report on City & Country Living.

By Prof Robert Cummings, Deakin University

Introduction;

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index monitors the subjective wellbeing of the Australian population. Each survey involves a telephone interview with a new sample of 2000 Australians selected to represent the national population geographic distribution. Every survey comprises the Personal Wellbeing Index, which measures people's satisfaction with their own lives, and the National wellbeing Index, which measures how satisfied people are with life in Australia.

The Theory;

The theoretical framework for the interpretation of data is the theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis.
This proposes that each person has a 'set point' for personal wellbeing that is internally maintained and defended.
This set point is genetically determined and, on average causes personal wellbeing to be held at 75 points on a 0 – 100 scale.

This Report: 12.1

For the purpose of this report, all 12 Australian Unity Wellbeing Index surveys were combined to create a sample of participants across Australia. The metropolitan areas for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide were defined by postcodes within a 30 km radius of the city centre. The Perth metropolitan area was defined as postcodes within a 20 km radius of the centre, and Hobart, Canberra and Darwin metropolitan areas were defined as a 15 km radius of the city centre.

The Accessibility/ Remoteness Index;

This index interprets Accessibility/Remoteness as the road distance to 201 'service centres' as defined below. 1. Highly Accessible (ARIA score 0-1.84) – relatively unrestricted accessibility to a wide range of goods and services and opportunities for social interaction. 2. Accessible (ARIA score >1.84-3.51) - some restrictions to accessibility of some goods, services and opportunities for social interaction. 3. Moderately Accessible (ARIA score >3.51-5.86) - significantly restricted accessibility of goods, services and opportunities for social interaction. 4. Remote (ARIA score >5.86-9.08) - very restricted accessibility of goods, services and opportunities for social interaction. 5. Very Remote (ARIA score > 9.08-12.0) - very little accessibility of goods, services and opportunities for social interaction.

Results

Accessibility/Remoteness
(a) The highest level of personal wellbeing is achieved by people who live in rural towns (Accessible and Moderately Accessible). Their personal wellbeing is higher than it is for people who live in Capital Cities and both of the Remote categories.

(b) In terms of satisfaction with safety and community connection, the values for people living in cities is lower than for people living in all other locations. It is evident that high living density produces less interpersonal connection and a diminished sense of safety.

(c) People living in the Very Remote categories have a lower satisfaction with Government than do people from the other locations. This may reflect the economic downturn that has affected rural Australia over the past few decades.

(d) People in the Accessible category have the lowest household income- Clearly; the high wellbeing experienced by this category of people is not being driven by high income.

(e) The Very Remote category has the highest personal income, yet their personal wellbeing is no higher than people who live in cities. It seems that their high income is not able to counteract the negative influence of remote environments on wellbeing.

(f) The higher personal wellbeing associated with Accessible and Moderately Accessible environments only occurs for people aged 26 to 55 years. These correspond most closely to the ages when people are likely to be living with children.

(g) Across the Australian population. Females have a higher personal wellbeing than males. This difference is exaggerated in the Remote and Very Remote areas. It may be that the female advantage in forming supportive social relationships buffers their wellbeing in these difficult circumstances of living.

Capital Cities
(a) The personal wellbeing of people living in Sydney and Perth is lower than it is for people living in the other State Capitals. This result for Sydney may be explained by the fact that its density of population is substantially higher than the other cities. The result for Perth is harder to explain. It may be linked to a sense of isolation or resentment towards the other Australian States.

(b) In terms of Satisfaction with Personal Safety, Adelaide joins Sydney and Perth as having the lowest values.

(c) In terms of Satisfaction with Community Connection, Darwin and Hobart are higher than the other cities.

(d) Summary: Across all measures of Personal and National Wellbeing, the two cities that most-consistently produce the highest values are Brisbane and Melbourne, We cannot statistically separate these two top cities in terms of population wellbeing.

Community Connection

(a) Females have higher satisfaction with their sense of community connection than males.
(b) Satisfaction with community connection increases with age.
(c) The sense of 'belonging' in Australia increases with age.
(d) The sense of 'belonging' in Australia decreases with income. This may reflect the increased independence and individualism associated with high income.
(e) In terms of work-status groupings, the people who have the strongest sense of feeling connected to their community are full-time volunteers. This may reflect the type of person who becomes a volunteer, or it may be a consequence of volunteering.

The Analyses

All data have been standardized to a 0-100 range Thus; the magnitude of group differences is referred to in terms of percentage points.
Reference is also made to normative ranges. These have been calculated for the Personal Wellbeing Indent in terms of the whole data-set that combines data across all surveys. Norms have also bees calculated separately for each of the Personal Wellbeing Index domains. They have also been calculated for gender, age groups and work-status groups- These norms are presented at the back of their respective chapters. All of the reported trends are statistically significant.

By Prof Robert Cummings, Deakin University, Melbourne, Vic. The complete report is of 56 pages and can be fully read on http://acqol.deakin.edu.au

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