The ways Australians' lives and fortunes have changed — and in some cases remained the same — over the last two decades have been revealed in a new report.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey has interviewed the same 17,000 people across more than 9,000 households every year since 2001.
The HILDA latest report, released on Thursday, shows that while progress has been made in some areas, we're going backwards in others.
Here's a snapshot of the findings in three key areas: housework, incomes, and religion.
Housework
Men in Australia aren't doing any more housework than they were 20 years ago, according to the report.
Men spent an average of 12.8 hours on housework in 2022 — the same amount as 2002. For women, the average was 18.4 hours.
One area where men's contribution did increase was the amount of time they spent caring for their children and disabled or elderly relatives.
That rose on average from 5 hours per week in 2002 to 5.5 in 2022. The peak, however, was 6.1 hours in 2014.
Women, meanwhile, spent 10.7 hours a week caring for their children and disabled or elderly relatives, compared to 10.1 in 2002. The peak for them was 11.8 hours in 2016.
Women have consistently done more housework than men. Source: SBS News
The average work week for women grew from 22.2 hours in 2002 to 28.5 in 2022, while men's rose by just 0.2 hours over the two decades to 37.9.
Dr Inga Lass, one of the report's authors, said: "We found that women take over a greater share of housework and care than their male partner in almost every employment scenario."
"While women do significantly more paid work than they used to, this divide of unpaid work at home has not changed significantly since we started measuring in 2002."
Perhaps unsurprisingly given how much they do, men were much more satisfied than women with the division of unpaid labour.
"Most women feel that they do more than their fair share at home, whereas men usually believe they share the housework and care fairly with their partner," Lass said.
Men were much more satisfied with the division of unpaid labour than women were. Source: SBS News
Incomes
Economic inequality in Australia is at its highest level since the HILDA survey began, with over half (51.2 per cent) of respondents saying their real income decreased between 2021 and 2022.
The financial support governments offered Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic helped to reduce inequality in 2020, the report said, but there was a significant increase in the following two years.
In 2021, there was a $7,542 difference between the mean and median individuals' household equivalised income.
That rose to $9,472 in 2022, suggesting the gap between the middle and upper classes is growing.
Equivalised income is a measure of living standards, calculated by adjusting household income to account for the size and needs of the household.
The rising difference in mean and median incomes suggested the gap between the middle and upper classes is growing. Source: SBS News
"At the same time, the relative growth of lower incomes has declined, which drives inequality up and makes it harder for poorer Australians to move into higher income groups."
In 2022, the Gini coefficient, which measures overall inequality, rose to 0.321 — the first time it's been above 0.31 in the HILDA's survey history.
The Gini score is measured between 0, where everyone is equal, and 1, where one person earns their country's entire income.
Non-elderly couples are the only family group to experience consistent growth in their median equivalised income since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Source: SBS News
Religion
Australians are becoming less religious, with our affiliations with faith groups declining between 2004 and 2022.
The report noted that the rise in the proportion of Australians who say they don't have a religion has coincided with a drop in the proportion of those who identify as Christian.
The 15–24 age group had the lowest proportion of religiosity for most of the last two decades, but were recently overtaken by 25 to 34-year-olds.
Australians were less likely to identify as religious in 2022 than 2004, regardless of their age. Source: SBS News
Men with at least a bachelor's degree (55.2 per cent) were more likely to be religious than those without one (51.5 per cent), but there was little difference for women.
Overall, rates of religious affiliation declined as household disposable income increased.
