Australia in March 2026 is a country under considerable strain
Average life satisfaction is lower than during the COVID-19 lockdowns and more than one in three Australians are finding life difficult or very difficult on their current income, according to ANUpoll data from the Australian National University (ANU).
The latest wave of the ANUpoll surveyed 3,662 adult Australians against the backdrop of the war between the US/Israel and Iran, the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and their effects on petrol and other prices. It is the 29th wave of the ANUpoll since October 2019 tracking wellbeing outcomes, economic anxiety, democratic attitudes, and measures of social cohesion. The study was conducted from 11 -26 March.
“Australia in March 2026 is a country under considerable strain,” Professor Nicholas Biddle, Head of the ANU School of Politics and International Relations, said.
“Average life satisfaction has fallen to 6.22 on a scale of zero to 10, the lowest recorded in the ANUpoll series and below levels reached during COVID-19 lockdowns.
“Unlike the lockdown periods, this decline is not a sharp shock from a higher base: life satisfaction was already depressed, making the current reading the culmination of a sustained deterioration rather than a sudden fall.”
Average life satisfaction reached a then-low of 6.52 in April 2020, fluctuated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and rose back to 6.78 by January 2023. With the exception of one wave of the ANUpoll (September 2025), average life satisfaction has been below 6.50 since October 2024.
For the first time in the ANUpoll series, more Australians are dissatisfied with the direction of the country than satisfied. Australians are more likely to say that they are not very or not at all satisfied with the direction of the country (54 per cent) than they are to say that they are very or fairly satisfied (46 per cent).
Nearly three-in-five (59.1 per cent) Australians think life was better 50 years ago, and a similar proportion (58.5 per cent) expect it to be worse in 50 years' time.
The gap between those who think today's children will have worse lives than their own and those who think they will have better ones has widened to 46 percentage points, up from 19 percentage points in 2008.
A record 34.9 per cent of Australians are finding it difficult or very difficult on their current income, and the majority have taken at least one significant financial coping action in the past twelve months.
“Employed Australians' expected probability of losing their job has reached 26.8 per cent, statistically indistinguishable from the levels recorded during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, despite the unemployment rate standing at only 4.3 per cent,” Professor Matthew Gray, Director of POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research at ANU, said.
“Fear of automation is now one of the primary drivers of this anxiety, with the proportion of employed Australians specifically concerned that machines or computer programs will replace their jobs having nearly doubled since 2018, reaching 30.3 per cent in March 2026.”
Reflecting on the dramatic deterioration in many measures of wellbeing, Professor Biddle noted that “the resilience of Australians' democratic attitudes is one of the more striking findings in this paper.”
Satisfaction with the way democracy works has remained broadly stable with almost two-thirds of Australians (65.7 per cent) satisfied or very satisfied. The paper concludes that “The question of whether Australia's democratic consensus holds will depend in significant part on whether these pressures are met with responses that Australians judge to be fair, competent, and commensurate with the challenges they face.”
Other key findings from the ANUpoll include:
• Australians with a university degree report higher life satisfaction, lower financial stress, greater confidence in institutions, higher satisfaction with democracy, and stronger principled support for democratic norms.
• Young Australians tend to be more optimistic and more satisfied with the direction of the country than those in the middle of the age distribution.
• Migrants are substantially more satisfied with the direction of the country and have higher levels of confidence in Australian institutions than Australian-born citizens.
• Core democratic values command very strong support, with more than nine-in-10 Australians agreeing that no one should be above the law, and more than eight-in-ten supporting the media's right to criticise the government.
Details of the study are published in Holding together, Just: Wellbeing, Economic Strain, and Democratic Resilience in Australia, March 2026on the ANU website.
