Relentless cost-of-living pressure, rising interest rates, uncertainty about the direction of the economy and growing concern about inequality has undermined Australia’s sense of social cohesion, according to authoritative new research.
After a polarising voice referendum campaign and amid rising community tensions over the war in the Middle East, the latest Mapping Social Cohesion Report puts the Scanlon-Monash Index of Social Cohesion at its lowest ebb since the survey began 16 years ago.
The social cohesion index provides a barometer of social wellbeing, measuring belonging, worth, participation, acceptance and rejection, social inclusion and justice. The measure declined by four points over the past 12 months, hitting the lowest result on record. Since November 2020 – the peak of social cohesion recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic – the index has plummeted 13 points.
The Scanlon Foundation has funded the Mapping Social Cohesion project since 2007. The 2023 snapshot, released on Wednesday, draws on a survey of more than 7,000 Australians augmented by qualitative interviews with people who have migrated to Australia.
The report maps the context informing some of the results. It says the voice to parliament referendum has been an accelerant to polarisation, and notes that current geopolitical conflict and tension is also a “risk to Australia’s harmony” because we are “connected to all sides of current conflicts through our migrant and ancestral diversity, as well as the diversity of our values and ideas”.
But it says sustained financial pressure is the factor weighing heavily on social cohesion. The research shows Australians are preoccupied principally with their stretched household budgets, housing affordability and the state of the economy. Almost nine-in-10 (87%) survey respondents are also worried about the risks of a severe downturn in the global economy.
In July 2020, 73% of respondents were happy with the state of their finances. That’s dropped to 61% in the latest research. Cost-of-living pressure is creating hardship, with 12% reporting skipping meals because there’s not enough money for food, 12% struggling to pay rents or mortgages, and 22% reporting insufficient income to pay for prescription medicines or healthcare.
Single-parent families, people who live alone and young people are bearing the brunt of the pressure. Two-thirds (66%) of single parents surveyed say they are just getting by, and 40% of the cohort report rent or mortgage stress, skipping meals and foregoing medicines. More than half (63%) of this cohort also feel socially isolated.
Rising economic pressure has coincided with declining trust in government. Trust in government rebounded during the pandemic, with 56% of survey participants saying in November 2020 the government in Canberra could be trusted to do the right thing for people all or most of the time. Only 36% say that in 2023.
While institutional trust has crashed from pandemic highs, current levels remain higher than during the decade of leadership coups in Canberra, where the average was 29%.
The research also suggests Coalition voters are particularly unhappy since the change of government. The study notes attitudes to government and democracy in this country are now “politically charged and polarised”.
Only 33% of Coalition voters trust the current government to do the right thing in 2023 – down from 73% when Scott Morrison was in power. The proportion of Coalition voters who believe Australian elections are free and fair all the time has declined from 77% in 2021 to 64% now.
Liberal and National voters are also more sharply pessimistic about Australia’s future post-election. In 2021, 14% expressed pessimism about the future and that has soared to 41% in 2023. The report notes the “sharply lower trust in government and the political system among Liberal National voters since the election of the current Labor government warrants continued monitoring”.
The report’s author, Australian National University demographer James O’Donnell, says the 2023 snapshot does have some reassuring conclusions. “We are still connected on many levels, within our neighbourhoods and local communities, with support for multiculturalism and support for the Indigenous relationship,” he says.
The research indicates support for multiculturalism is holding up despite the challenging economic outlook. Significant majorities say multiculturalism has been good for Australia (89%) and a similar percentage (86%) say immigrants are generally good for the economy. But it also indicates significant numbers of people experience prejudice and discrimination routinely in everyday life.
The research also suggests Australians are tied strongly to their neighbourhoods – an experience reinforced by periods of lockdown during the pandemic.
“But things like [the war in the Middle East] start to fray those connections,” O’Donnell says. He says neighbourhood and community connections help people navigate “difficult times” but the Israel-Hamas war could “drive a wedge between specific groups”.
“[The war] probably could not have come at a worse time, coming off the back of cost-of-living pressures, it can start to eat away at those connections.
“We are seeing from the survey the impact of cost-of-living pressures and the economy impacting in so many ways in terms of a sense of belonging, a sense of trust, of social inclusion and participation in communities.”
