Personal wellbeing


Personal wellbeing domain

Personal wellbeing

Wellbeing is an expression of how people and the community feel about their quality of life. The personal wellbeing index picks up seven key factors of life satisfaction (reflected in the framework’s domains) and summarises them into a globally recognised, validated and comparable, measure of how well life is going (or ‘how we are doing’) overall.

Personal Wellbeing Index

This measure shows how satisfied Canberrans are, on average, with their:

Our overall level of wellbeing fell during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It recovered relatively quickly and was back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2020.

However, during 2022 and 2023, wellbeing declined. The proportion of Canberrans reporting low wellbeing increased from 17.6% in late 2021 to 25% in 2023.

While 75% of Canberrans continue to report typical or high wellbeing, the decline in overall wellbeing has disproportionately affected some groups:

Some people persistently report lower rates of wellbeing, particularly those:

2022-2023: Living well in the ACT region survey, unpublished data.

2019-2021: Living well in the ACT region: The changing wellbeing of Canberrans during 2020 and 2021.

Line graph of percentage of respondents who reported high, typical and low levels of personal wellbeing in the ACT, by year between 2019 and 2023.

In 2023, 42.7% rated their wellbeing as typical compared to 42.2% in 2022.

In 2023, 32.3% rated their wellbeing as high compared to 31.1% in 2022.

In 2023, 25% rated their wellbeing as low compared to 26.6% in 2022.

The Living Well in the ACT Region survey, conducted by the University of Canberra, aims to measure, track and understand the wellbeing of adult residents living in the Australian Capital Territory region of Australia. It examines factors known to affect wellbeing at the individual, household, community and regional level.

When generating data for the ACT, statistical weighting is used to address differences between the sample of people who respond to the survey, and the characteristics of the ACT adult population. Differences between groups are reported when there is a statistically significant difference based on 95% confidence intervals or other tests of significance.

Data are produced from this survey for different groups of people in the ACT. The ‘overall response’ category represents responses at the ACT population level. Where reliable estimates can be produced, data are also presented for Canberrans by: gender, age, cultural background, gender identity and sexuality, carer role and experience of disability.

Care is needed when interpreting the differences in findings between groups as the descriptive statistics published here show where there are differences in wellbeing, but not what has caused those differences in wellbeing.

The University of Canberra has been conducting the survey since 2019. As of mid-2023, the survey had been conducted 6 times. Not all questions have been measured each time the survey has been conducted.

There have been no changes in measure design, analysis or reporting of this measure since it was first included in the survey.

Data for people with disability can only be compared between 2022 and 2023 due to a change in the way disability was defined and measured in the survey, to better reflect international best practice.

Further information about the survey can be found at Living Well in the ACT Region or by contacting Professor Jacki Schirmer at the University of Canberra.