The latest annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has detailed how Australians coped with the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report surveys 17,000 each year and over the course of their lifetime.
The report found Australians in the 55 to 64 and 65 and over age groups “consistently reported better mental health relative to other age groups”.
“Most notably are the sharp declines in mental health for the 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 groups,” the report said.
Between 2011 and 2020 the average mental health worsened for young adults by almost 10 per cent.
“Mental health deteriorated substantially between 2019 and 2020,” the report said.
The report noted the “substantial lockdown” in Victoria has been linked to poorer mental health outcomes, however the full extent of the impact is expected to be shown in next year’s report.
“This decline among younger Australians appears to be more about cohort than age and it’s the 1980s and 1990s cohorts that are driving that decline,” HILDA survey researcher Dr Ferdi Botha said.
“They have worse mental health at the same age than people born in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s.”
The survey also revealed younger Aussies were worse off due to unemployment rates spiking.
But despite this substantial fall in mental health, young Australians were less likely to say their lives were much worse during COVID-19.
“Perhaps surprisingly is that people aged 15 to 24 were among the least likely to report that their life was much worse because of the crisis,” the report noted.
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In terms of other cohorts, the report showed women reported worse mental health than men.
From 2011 to 2020, the mental health score for women dropped from 73.3 in 2011 to 68.9 in 2020, compared to 74.9 and 72.1 for men.
The survey also found people with poorer general health have worse mental health and similarly those who are unemployed also have worse mental health.
