Fewer than half of Australian partners give full marks for having their needs met, HILDA survey finds

An average and a top-box share are different statistics, and the survey's two headline figures are one of each. The 4.3 is a mean on a scale where 1 means deeply unhappy and 5 completely content ^[1]. The 40% and one-third figures are the shares choosing 5 on two practical items: whether a partner meets their needs, and how closely the relationship matches what they pictured at the start ^[4]. Take an invented split in which a third of respondents gave a 5 and everyone else a 4. The average would come out at about 4.33 ^[1].

Set the love answers beside the practical ones and the top share drops by roughly 33 percentage points for men and by about half for women ^[2]. The no-regrets question looks like the love question, with 71.8% of men and 67.3% of women saying they never wish they had not partnered up ^[3]. The phys.org account of the report takes the gap to mean that people are "quite clear about what works in their relationship and what doesn't" ^[15]. That may well be so. The shares are population figures, though, so they cannot show whether the people answering "very, very much" are the ones marking their needs below a 5 ^[2].

HILDA's value is its panel design. It follows more than 17,000 Australians every year ^[5], and the latest release uses data collected in 2024 ^[6]. Returning to the same people is what produces the split rates for low scorers ^[7]. Turned around, about 61% of those who rated their relationship a 1 and about 74% of those who rated it a 2 were still together three to four years later ^[3]. The account notes that most unhappy couples stay, at least in the short term ^[8]. The comparison needed to size the added risk is the split rate among the happiest couples, and the account does not report it.

The long-run curve has a selection problem built in. The account says quality recovers after its low point, about 24 years after moving in, for those who go the distance ^[9]. It puts the trough down to heavy workloads, children, home loans and family expenses ^[17]. I'd expect part of the recovery after 65 to come from who is left. Couples who split drop out of the pool of couples, and close to two in five of the least happy did split within three to four years ^[7].

Strain from children is greatest when the youngest is between 4 and 7 and persists through ages 8 to 17 ^[11]. Lower scores also go with disability, living outside the mainland capitals and being born overseas outside the main English-speaking countries ^[12]. So does doing a much larger share of the housework and child care; the account suggests that division is often seen as unfair ^[13]. HILDA records how people's lives go, and it does not assign anyone to financial stress ^[5]. Its ranking of severe financial stress as the biggest strain ^[10] says which factor tracks lower scores most strongly. Whether easing a couple's money stress would lift their score is a separate question.

Scores from 2020 to 2024 were also lower than in the early 2000s. The account attributes some of the drop to the pandemic, with its lockdowns, job and financial pressures and homeschooling ^[14].