Australia - the idyllic holiday spot – a long trip from anywhere else – but one worth taking. Worth taking because everyone looks like Kylie Minogue or Shane Warne, calls each other ‘mate’ in egalitarian friendship, frolics on sunny beaches, surf in clear blue waves, wrestles crocodiles (and wins) and lives a laidback BBQ-fuelled life.
Ah – the fantasies we dream!
The reality. Australia is a hard-grind, hard-working multi-cultural nation of migrants or children or grandchildren of migrants, who still bear the migrant drive to better themselves and better their families’ futures. While most Australians speak English, over 200 languages are in daily use across the country and one in eight speak one or other of these 200+ languages at home.
Most Australians of working age are in paid jobs (the unemployment rate is under 6% despite the American-led recession). Most Australians in jobs are working longer hours – for full time workers, an average of 42 hours a week, and 30% of men work over 50 hours a week – up by over a third in twenty years.
But work is not evenly split by gender.
Men tend to do more paid work (32 hours a week on average) while women do more unpaid work – the housework and household shopping. Women average 34 hours a week on this unpaid but necessary work. Men spend about 18 hours a week on housework and shopping while women average 16 hours in paid employment.
But there is a bonanza for young single men! If they can persuade a woman to move in with them, the young men do no more housework or shopping than before but (on average) the women increase their housework and shopping time by a further six hours a week!
The little known Australian penchant for hard work does pay off. Most live in homes they own – outright or with a mortgage (70% of all private dwellings are owned with or without a mortgage). The Australian homes are mostly free-standing homes on their own blocks of land – often air conditioned to compensate for the heat – but increasingly with energy-efficient make-overs.
The homes are getting larger – and are fitted out with the latest home theatres and two more cars. Twenty years ago, the typical Australian house had three bedrooms, one bathroom and separate living areas. Now it typically has a fourth bedroom and an ensuite and many have rumpus rooms, walk-in wardrobes and walk-in kitchen pantries (essential for the growing body mass of the average once lean Australian – men alone have gained an average of 7 kilograms – now weighing in at 84 kg each on average, since the late 1980s). New houses average 228 square metres (up from 162 square metres two decades ago).
Almost every second Australian has a car – the country averages 465 cars per every 1,000 people.
But these cars are needed because more Australians (54%) live in cities with at least a million or more others, cities that are widely spread, with minimal public transport. Cars are needed for work and leisure – and for status. No ‘real Aussie man’ is complete without a ute (single cabin and trailer body motor vehicle) and a kelpie dog for company. Though again, the reality is that most choose mid-size sedans that are child- and older people-friendly, and aging – the average car on the roads is over ten years old. But in a mainly dry country, rust is not a big issue.
Australia is a country of large cities – 69% live in towns and cities of 70,000 or more and the two largest cities (Melbourne and Sydney – the local equivalents of Edinburgh and London) each have more than 3.5 million inhabitants.
Australians are working longer before retirement. Those who are now retired, generally retired before they were 60 years old, but those now working do not plan to retire until they are 64 years old, giving an extra five years of ‘working for the man’. So, if you thought of coming to Australia, be prepared to roll your sleeves up and work much longer – hours each week and years of your life!
Australia has three levels of government.
The first is the national or federal level (it is a commonwealth of formerly independent colonies or States) which manages taxation, defence and social security and pays for much of the rest. Then the second tier is the State level (there are eight States or territories) which generally provide the education, transport and health facilities and then a local municipal council level that generally provide the parks, collects the garbage and provides the local libraries. Overall, one in six employees is employed directly by the three levels of Government and more are employed in not-for-profit sectors, indicating the profit-driven sector is strong but not all-embracing.
Apart from the short-lived Rum Rebellion of 1808, Australian national, State or local Governments change mostly by freely contested elections (only rarely by English Royal (or vice-regal) decree as Australia is still nominally governed by the English Queen). The representative democracy system of government is strongly entrenched in the national psyche and is likely to continue so in the future, with perhaps one day, an Australian elected Head of State rather than an inherited English royal.
Business is moving on soundly, despite a quieting due to the global recession but most people are still working, eating and drinking and, now that the all-conquering Aussie Cricket team is kindly giving others a go at the top, Australians are turning to their local winter football competitions to fill in the odd non-working times around the water coolers.
Most in Australia live a middle class life and the class structure is very porous – with much opportunity for improvement or decline. There are pockets of real deprivation and poverty but currently, there is much activity to try to remedy those.
In fact, overall, life in Australia is so good, it is worth migrating – but on the other hand, the one advantage of a best kept secret is that it is best kept secret and so perhaps these Views from Australia should remain secret in case everyone else wants to share Australian life too!
Views prepared by Philip Derham, Director of Derham Marketing Research Pty. Ltd. for Nick Thomas, Editor of MRWeb for a series of country snapshots as part of an Olympic journey from Peking to London. Data is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the views are those of Philip Derham.
See also the following articles from the MrWeb archives:
Research Down Under 2008: Passion, Perks and Booming Boutiques by Anthea Berry, CC International Recruitment.
Love and Hate - Aussie researchers on their highs and lows - from the December 2004 MRWho.
Philip Derham, Director 