Welfare, in the broadest sense, refers to the wellbeing of individuals, families and the community. This biennial report presents a snapshot of selected key findings on welfare and wellbeing data, offering a point-in-time overview of how Australia is faring. It provides a comparison of how Australia ranks on a number of welfare measures compared to the average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

Chapters

1. Life satisfaction and connections
2. Education
3. Work
4. Income
5. Housing
6. Disability
7. Aged care
8. First Nations people
9. Justice and safety
10. Improving welfare data.

Key findings

• Rates of life satisfaction have decreased slightly, while the proportion experiencing loneliness has remained reasonably constant.
• More Australians understand and reject gender inequality and violence against women, compared with 15 years ago.
• Around 1.26 million low-income households were in financial housing stress in 2024–25.
• Home ownership rates declined from 50% to 36% among people aged 25–29 and from 64% to 50% for those aged 30–34, between 1971 and 2021.
• More people are now using home care than permanent residential aged care.
• Fewer young people aged 10–17 are under youth justice supervision than in previous years.
• The proportion of First Nations people aged 25–34 who had completed a tertiary qualification as their highest educational attainment has more than doubled from 19% in 2001 to 47% in 2021. 

The report is accompanied by topic summaries – a collection of more than 30 web pages providing a comprehensive coverage of statistics on welfare services, Australians’ welfare and wellbeing and ongoing data improvement activities.