Relationship Indicators

National survey of the state of relationships in Australia

Collected by Life in Australia™ – Australia’s most methodologically rigorous panel. These findings inform our efforts to support all Australians to achieve positive and respectful relationships.

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60%

of Australians said their partner was the most important, meaningful person in their life

40%

of those aged 55+ faced no relationship pressures over the past six months, relationship pressures decreased with age

25%

of relationships feel pressure from work or study commitments

23.9% are exhibiting symptoms of loneliness, compared to 17% in our 2018 Loneliness Report

28% are experiencing social loneliness while 19.8% are experiencing emotional loneliness

45.9% of young people (18-24 years) are emotionally lonely

As people got older, levels of loneliness decreased

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94.5% of Australians feel loved

Mental health is placing a significant strain on relationships

22%

of people were affected by mental health – the second greatest pressure facing Australian relationships

13%

of Australians said their mental health was poor to terrible over the past six months

87%

of people with long-term mental health conditions faced more pressures than the Australian population average of 71.9%

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1.7 million Australians feel unsafe disagreeing with their most important person

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Experiences with grief and loss in a partner relationship led to higher rates of loneliness and additional pressures in other relationships

31%

experienced a break-up, separation, or divorce with a lasting impact

12%

of people received no valuable support following the death of their partner

1.5x

people who had lasting impacts from grief and loss were 1.5 times lonelier than those who didn’t

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46.2% manage their relationship issues on their own

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Strong and reliable relationships improve wellbeing, loneliness and mental health

People who could rely on one strong relationship;

for a variety of social supports had better life satisfaction

were 1.4 times less lonely than those who relied on many different relationships

had better mental health over the past six months

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The dashboard is an interactive visualisation of the data we collected. You can look through the survey questions, filtering by age, gender and geographic location. You can also see fact sheets with key findings about certain population groups.

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Blogs and Videos

Check out our launch webinar and our blog posts.

Webinar

Relationships Australia presents Relationship Indicators 2022

Watch our launch webinar - we cover key findings, recommendations and avenues for future research.

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