Living longer, wealthier, more educated but less productive: ABS gives Australian scorecard

Australians are more educated, earning more, living longer and more likely to have a job – but our productivity has fallen over the past decade.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Measures of Australia’s Progress report, which covers the 10 years to 2010, shows that unemployment fell to 5.2% from 6.3% and our life expectancy increased by two or three years, with life expectations for babies born now at 83.9 for girls and 79.3 for boys.

AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver says the past decade has been pretty good for Australia, but this report taps into concerns about productivity.

Oliver says there are lots of theories about why productivity has weakened, including strong employment growth meaning the burden is being shared across more workers, and the gains of the macro-economic reforms in the 1990s working through the system. There are also expectations that investment in the mining sector might pay off in the years ahead, Oliver says.

“It’s a national puzzle about why productivity has slowed, and how to pick up,” Oliver says, adding that the decline has been masked by rises in national income, but concerns about productivity may increase as employment growth slows.

The statistics bureau says for most of the last decade, “the unemployment rate declined as a result of Australia’s strong economic growth from a high of 6.8% in 2011 to a low of 4.2% in 2008. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the unemployment rate rose to 5.6% in 2009 before declining to 5.2% in 2010.” It currently sits at 5.3%.

Almost two in three Australians has a vocational or higher education qualification, the ABS said, with 63% of people aged between 25 and 64 boasting one, up from 50% previously. Those with a bachelor degree or above rose to 27% last year, from 18% in 2000.

The report also shows the Australia’s real net national disposable income per capita lifted over the decade to $45,600, from $37,600. But the growth was not even: the annual increase of 2.4% includes a 1.9% fall during the GFC, mostly reflecting the “first real decline in the terms of trade since 1998-99”.

“The growth in a nation’s wealth is the outcome of a wide variety of influences. Broadly, changes in real wealth reflect both accumulations of past saving or dissaving and changes in the relative prices of assets and liabilities,” the ABS says.

It says national wealth per person grew 8% to $308,500, from $285,700, despite bumps during the GFC.

And despite concerns about housing affordability, the report finds that rental affordability for low-income households has remained constant over the past decade, at 28%.

AMP’s Shane Oliver says the figure is not surprising, but will likely change.

“Even though rents have been going up, they have been going up as fast as people’s incomes have. It probably will go up at some point, given we have a shortage of housing.”

The productivity news is not great: the report says from 2003-04 to 2007-08, growth in inputs was higher than growth in outputs, so multi-factor productivity actually declined by 1%.

The report follows another ABS report last month which showed real living standards rose from 2003-04 to 2009-10, with the proportion spent on recreation, household furnishings, equipment and transport rising in line with increases in net worth.