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Lifestyle missing in census action

AS excited as I am about the results of the 2011 census, I have to confess to being frustrated by the questions it posed.

TheAustralian

AS excited as I am about the results of the 2011 census, I have to confess to being frustrated by the questions it posed.

The census will reveal much about the population's composition and distribution but not a lot about the lifestyle, the priorities and the behaviour of the Australian people. And in many respects it is these attributes that drive consumer spending.

After all, two households with similar incomes can channel spending to very different priorities. What we really need in addition to the census is a survey of lifestyle and behaviour -- and that is exactly the intent behind the inaugural KPMG Nine Rewards Lifestyle Survey completed last month.

More than 2000 Australians aged 18-plus were selected to respond to an online survey of modern behaviour. How many friends do you have? How many credit cards do you use? How often do you eat out? How often do you go on holiday? Are you on Facebook, Twitter, email? Do you own a plasma television?

The reason this information is important is that it shows how households prioritise spending. For example, those most likely to own multiple credit cards are aged 40-49. Those most likely to take a holiday are aged either 25-29, or over 60.

And, most tellingly, those most likely to eat out at a cafe or restaurant are aged 18-24. This lot also has most friends. In fact, those least likely to eat out or to go on a holiday are the very same people most likely to have multiple credit cards -- the 40-somethings.

What the lifestyle survey reveals is a fault line running through the Australian community. Life in the 40s is very different to life before and after this decade.

The common denominator to the 40s is not just the advent of children, it is the advent of family maturation.

It takes focus, money, credit cards and sacrifice for middle Australians to raise children to, through and beyond the teenage years.

Now, to some extent it's not news that life's tough having kids. But the key insight from the survey is not so much this point; it is the lifestyle contrast between the years immediately before and after having children. And it is this stark reality that is perhaps leading to recklessness in Y's spending and behaviour: drudgery lies ahead, so live to excess now.

The question is how the spending habits of Generation Y might alter as they cross the 35-year fault line into drudgery (and children) during the 2010s.

By the middle of this decade, Generation Y will be firmly ensconced in family formation with an adult history of spending to excess. How will this lucky generation fare in the foreboding land that lies beyond 35?

But there was another question in the survey that was inserted at my request. (There has to be some advantage to running a collaboration with a survey group.) Call me curious or call me nosy, but I wanted to know what proportion of the adult partnered population was happy in their relationship.

You will be perhaps unsurprised that 96 per cent of respondents said they were indeed happy. And again this makes sense: these days if you aren't happy, you leave. But there was a clear picture that emerged from the data that was as sharp as any ultrasound or X-ray image.

The proportion of partnered adults unhappy in their relationship was more than double the average at 11 per cent in, you guessed it, the 45-49 cohort. Every other age group was blissfully -- or close to blissfully -- happy in their relationship.

The exception was the 18-24 year cohort, who were 99 per cent happy with their partner. As they damn well should be: no kids, no commitment and nothing as yet sagging.

But it is the late 40s again that trouble again brews. At this time in life not only is money short, curtailing many of modern life's lifestyle pleasures, but other problems emerge.

The late 40s usually come with teenagers. Need I say more? The late 40s also deliver the confronting reality that the body is falling apart: expanding here, drooping there (apparently). The late 40s is when you realise that you will never be chief executive or department head despite working for 25 years.

The late 40s is when the relationship that yielded children shows signs of wear and tear; formerly loveable peccadilloes become annoying. The late 40s is when parents die, is when a friend of a friend who is your age dies from a heart attack. The late 40s is when you get your first glimpse of life beyond work and when you realise that you haven't saved enough to live the retirement you had presumed.

The late 40s is when you realise you will be neither rich nor famous; it is when for the first time you can see youth receding and old age advancing. No wonder partnered people in their late 40s are more likely to say in the privacy of an online survey that they are not happy with their partner.

I suspect the real proportion is double the reported figure (say, closer to 20 per cent). And then there are the people who, though not unhappy are also not exactly happy (add another 10 per cent).

So how do you connect with 40-something Generation Xers dealing with sullen teenagers, with grumpy husbands and angry wives, weighed down with too much credit card debt, with ageing bodies, and who are fearful of what lies ahead and who are regretful of what they have left behind?

Easy. You sell them escapism. Here is a makeover product, TV show, financial package, intoxicant, gaming thrill, lotto opportunity that will make your problems (and maybe your partner) disappear.

Oddly, the survey also shows that if you can hang in there, there are happier times in the 50s. Perhaps when the kids leave home you come to a realisation that your partner isn't so bad, that you didn't really want to be department head, and that you don't need a fancy lifestyle in retirement.

Perhaps there is a 50s karma that lies beyond the 40s chaos. I wonder whether the same question posed in the late 2020s to today's Generation Ys, then in their late 40s, will reveal the same traits as for Xers today.

Or will Ys in middle age be even sadder, even angrier, even more disappointed than any previous generation with middle age, because by then they will yearn nostalgically for the excesses and the lifestyle of their long-lost youth?

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt's new book is The Big Tilt; bsalt@kpmg.com.au; Twitter.com/bernardsalt; Facebook/BernardSaltDemographer

Bernard Salt
Bernard SaltColumnist

Bernard Salt is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading social commentators by business, the media and the broader community. He is the Managing Director of The Demographics Group, and he writes weekly columns for The Australian that deal with social, generational and demographic matters.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/lifestyle-missing-in-census-action/news-story/a8fad7f610ac27ad2a0279e005c85d27