Fewer friends, more time stress: essential charts from this year’s HILDA survey

Melbourne, Sep 19 (The Conversation) Every year, one of Australia’s biggest longitudinal surveys provides a range of insights on how the nation is changing.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, released today, reveals trends on a wide range of aspects of life in Australia, including household relationships, income, health and wellbeing.

HILDA has been following the same people every year since 2001, with about 16,000 respondents in the latest survey. This makes it possible to examine how the lives of Australians have changed across several aspects. Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools.

So, what are the highlights from the 2025 report? Friendships are declining Friendships are clearly important, providing both emotional and practical support to people. However, agreement with the statement “I seem to have a lot of friends” has fallen noticeably from 2010 to 2023. This long-term decline accelerated during the COVID-19 period, when social distancing measures often prevented face-to-face interactions with friends and family.

The decline in friendships has repercussions for people’s well-being. The report shows that a low perceived number of friends is associated with fewer social activities, greater feelings of loneliness and poorer mental health. This is all the more concerning because it often gets harder to make friends as life goes on.

Time stress is rising again Time stress – feeling rushed often or almost always – is common for many Australians, especially women. In 2023, 38 per cent of women reported frequent time stress, while only 29 per cent of men did. This gap has persisted over the past two decades. Rates fell sharply in 2020 during the pandemic’s first year but have since returned to pre-pandemic levels for both groups.

Retirement age has seen a big shift Australia has seen a dramatic transformation in retirement over the past 20 years, with people retiring later than they used to. In 2003, nearly 70 per cent of women and almost half of men aged 60–64 were fully retired. By 2023, this dropped to 41 per cent for women and 27 per cent for men.

Retirement rates have also declined among those aged 65-69. Over the same period, the Age Pension eligibility age was equalised for men and women at 65 by 2013, then gradually increased to 67 between 2017 and 2023.

The decision to retire is no longer driven purely by personal preference or age alone. It’s increasingly shaped by policy, housing wealth, superannuation balances and whether someone can afford to stop working.

We’re paying more in income tax Australians are now paying the highest average rate of income tax since the turn of the millennium. But the trend over this period hasn’t always been upwards. Between 2006 and 2011, the average tax rate for full-time workers actually fell, from 19.4 per cent to 15.7 per cent. Since 2011, however, the trend has overwhelmingly been upwards.

Across the population as a whole aged 15 and over, the average share of income paid as income tax rose to 11.7 per cent in the 2022-23 financial year. For full-time workers, the average rate was higher, at 20.3 per cent.

Bodily pain Pain can severely affect people’s ability to take part in day-to-day activities, work, and lead happy and satisfying lives.

The new data shows the extent of bodily pain Australians report has risen over the last two decades – and it’s not just due to an ageing population. We asked respondents about whether they experienced pain and how much it affected their day-to-day life, then calculated a score from 0 (no bodily pain) to 100 (severe pain). The average levels of pain that women reported increased by 5.6 per cent between 2001 and 2003 (from 27 points to 28.5 points). For men, pain increased by 4.8 per cent (27 points to 28.3 points).

Pain scores were slightly higher for women than for men across all years.

We adjusted these scores for age, suggesting the reported rise is not due to ageing but instead other factors, such as an increase in chronic conditions, obesity, and people being more likely to report their pain. (The Conversation) SKS SKS