Australian health, wellbeing and connectedness shrinking in the cost-of-living crisis, research finds

The new Australian Cohesion Index finds financial hardship has wider implications for the health and wellbeing and participation in Australia’s social fabric. Photograph: Olaser/Getty Images/iStock

Demographer James O’Donnell likes to talk about Australia’s Matildas moment – a span of time in the recent past when people from all walks of life rallied behind a common aspiration and shared a sense of national identity.

“That was a really unifying moment,” O’Donnell says. “Then we go straight into this divisive debate around the voice to parliament. How that is playing out in the data is something we are still grappling with.”