Last year, Australia has been named again as one of the happiest countries on the planet by the World Happiness Report, a notable survey by the United Nations to assess the state of global happiness. Ever since the survey was first published in 2012, the country has been a constant inclusion in the top 10. Consequently, Australia also has one of the highest migration rates in the world, one of the highest migrants per net population, and one of the top destinations for skilled migration and sponsorships.
And there is a clear connection. Happiness is an essential ingredient to success, whether it is with your career, financial endeavors, relationships with people, or self-fulfillment. And if a country ranks very high in the happiness level, people will gravitate to it, whatever their goals and missions in life are may be.
However, Australians’ happiness level is not some unexplainable phenomenon with unknown sources. It is the sum total of various social, economic, and environmental factors that the country worked so hard over decades to achieve.
We dissected the many elements as to why Australia is such a happy and attractive place to live in with the help of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s report.
Being employed is very important for your well-being. Not only so that you can pay the bills, but it gives you the opportunity to contribute to society and the economy, hone your skills, and create professional and social relationships. Here, virtually everybody is being given that opportunity. As high as 72% of the working-age population here (aged 15 to 64) is employed and being paid. This is six points higher than the OECD’s 66% employment average.
The unemployed population (those without a job for a year or longer), on the other hand, is down at 1.3%, twice as low as the OECD average of 2.6%. Australians earn an average of US$51, 148 annually, higher compared to the OECD standard of US$40, 974.
We can never overstate the importance of strong social connection. In the age of smart phones, apps, and social media sites, our relationships have mostly died down to random “friends” we don’t even now and anonymous followers.
In Australia, however, connections are as strong as ever. 95% of the people here are secured that they know someone they could run to and rely on when the need arises, way higher compared to the OECD average of 88%. Strong social relationships provide people with strong emotional support, leading to a healthy physical and psychological dispositions in life. It also gives access to more job, career, and business opportunities to members of the community. Possibly another reason why nobody doesn’t go long unemployed here.
An educated country is a country ready to take on challenges and take care of its citizens better. Australia never misses that point. Aussies, on average, spend 19.2 years of their life studying between ages 5 and 39. Of the adults, 77% of them from ages 25-64 have attained upper secondary education. This is important because the skills required in the labour market are mostly knowledge-based, and such impressive educational statistics means that the country is prepared to meet minimum requirements of the job market.
Air and water is supposed to keep us alive. But with pollution both in the atmosphere and hydrosphere continuing to rise, they have become part of the death warrant. Dirty air and water have significantly contributed to increase in many illnesses from infections to cancer to developmental effects in children to shortened lifespan.
As far as air pollutants are concerned, Australia has the lowest rate within the OECD average at 5.9 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter. PM2.5 refers to the particulate matter that we inhale from air. OECD’s average is at 14.05 micrograms per cubic meter. Take note also that the World Health Organization’s annual guideline limit is 10 micrograms per cubic meter. Oz is still way lower.
On the other hand, 94% of people say they are satisfied with the quality of water. Way higher than the OECD average of 81%.
And because of this…
At 82 years of age, Australia has one of the highest life expectancies among the western nations. This is the result of many factors coming in together such as good living standards, lifestyles, quality education, healthy, and clean air and water, among others. Not to mention, the country’s health care is also efficient, making the people feel that they are properly being taken care of. As a result, 85% of people in Australia said they were in good health,
Democracy is a government by the people. And it is only important that the citizens are involved when it comes to nation-building activities such as elections and referendums. The most recent elections produced an overall 93% among registered voters. Civic engagement is proof that the people are well-educated, well-informed about current events, trust their government, and care enough to be involved in the decision-making process for its improvement.
Peace of mind is an important element of happiness. The people should feel safe enough in order to achieve this. Australia’s homicide rate is at 0.8, compared to OECD’s average of 4.1. As far as the trend in the previous years are concerned, crime rate keeps going down, a result of better policing, stronger criminal laws, and crime-preventive education among the people. In fact, the most prevalent offences here aren’t even threatening, as they are mostly public disorder offences, e.g. disorderly conduct or public drunkenness.
When enquired to rate their overall satisfaction with life on a scale of 0 to 10, Aussies gave it a grade of 7.3. This is higher than the OECD average of 6.5. Though this may be subjective, this enquiry produces measurements that provide useful data on the quality of life Australians are having. That only means that all the conglomeration of factors involved resulted on a positive experience they are having. That is the most important thing after all.
When we plan to migrate, we tend to look on things that will satisfy our senses. Is the food good? Will the sights be superb? Are people friendly enough? Do they have Netflix? While taking these into consideration toatlly make sense (you will settle there for the rest of your life, after all), we have to see beyond these things and look at the more important factor that actually affect sustainability of life here. These factors overall economy, employment rate, optimism and the likes.
Worry no more. The Land Down Under takes care of these smoothly, as evidenced by reports we have gathered that implies Australia is going north when it comes to economic sustainability. Here are five of them.
Despite the scares and panic caused surrounding the Brexit last June on a global scale, Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew in the first quarter of 2016, making it the 99th quarter of which the country is in a state of economic prosperity. This hikes up the acceleration growth rate to 3.1%, the fastest since 2012’S September quarter.
Gross domestic product is the value of all the products and services produced by a country within a specified time. This is one of the indicators of a country’s general economic activities.
It has been almost 24 years since Australia had undergone recession, a period of significant decline in economy lasting for a few months. While going through this is quite normal even for developed countries, the Lucky Country has managed to avoid this.
Compared to other first world nations such as Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Japan, Australia has outperformed them when it comes to GDP, unemployment, and consumer price index (CPI).
The growth of the manufacturing sector not only the by-product of a good economy. In fact, most often than not, it is one of the causes. A country’s GDP is dependent on manufactured goods and services, and between the two, goods is the one on which global trade hinges on.
Recently, Australia bid good bye on Ford’s 91 year-old manufacturing business in the country. But despite this loss, the manufacturing sector is rocking it again. The third quarter of 2016 saw the pillar of economy bouncing back, led by the food industry and increasing the Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index by 2.9 points to 49.8 last month.
And while this is going smoothly, technology has also jumped in to take the manufacturing up a notch by some companies making their factory staff utilise wearable devices to keep an eye on fatigue, preventing workplace accidents in the process.
But this breakthrough isn’t just something that jumpstarted two months ago. The rise of production sector has been already reported as far back as January, with the petroleum, wood and paper products, chemical & rubber products, coal, food, beverages and tobacco, furniture, clothing, textiles, and other industries all witnessed increased activities during this period.
And what happens when production has increased? That means more jobs, which leads us to…
Australia is already known to have very low unemployment rates. But last month’s numbers defied even the most optimistic expectations when unemployment rate from 5.7% to 5.6%, reaching its lowest level in three years. Economist predicted that the numbers will stay at 5.7%, which is already good, but went further lower by 0.01% in August.
The Turnbull government welcomed the development warmly, is this is a result of the 186,000 more jobs they have added to the workforce.
A low unemployment rate means that the number of Australians actively seeking for a job is low in relation to the population of actively employed people. This boosts up the economy in a number of ways. First, it improves efficient utilization of resources and equipment. When this happens, production efficiency increases, meeting customer demands and maintaining good consumer and supplier relations.
Second, it makes finding job easier for Australians, not only because there are more jobs, but also because the companies have confidence in the job market demand in the near future. Third, this means more buying power for the consumer, which in turn increases demand, opening for more jobs. Making at a virtuous cycle.
And since we are on the topic of buying power…
And it seems like this virtuous has begun already. Because of improvements on their personal finances, Australians now a more likely to spend, advancing consumer spending and consumer sentiments in the process, as reported by the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank survey last month.
The survey, which included 1,200 participants, found that consumer sentiment stepped up to 0.3% in September from a 2% increase in August. Consumer sentiment measures people opinion about their current financial wellness, as well as the short term and long term growth and wellness of the economy. This is one of the powerful economic indicators available, as if it measures and displays the economic advancement on the human level.
The ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index also reported the same thing. Despite the falling of a mere 2.2%, consumer confidence in the country remains above its long-run average of 112.8, making it higher than normal.
Rising retail sales are on one of those numbers people will relegate only to increase of department store sales and huge discounts, but as stated above, it is another essential economic indicator. Increase in sales of everyday items exhibits the consumers’ confidence in the market, in the economy, and in their pockets. If they think financial circumstances are bleak, then they will keep their money and save it in the bank. It is good, but not that good, because it does not encourage circulation of money.
With Australia’s August retail sales hitting a +0.4%, it defies (again!) expectations from economists. This amounts to $25.128 billion worth of sales from consumers, and is now the biggest monthly increase since October 2015. Along with department store goods, jumping sales have also been in reported in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (1.2%), food retailing (0.3%) and household goods retailing (0.2%).