Secret to happiness and health: be a workaholic

WHY is James Packer smiling? Apart from romance with Mariah Carey, the billionaire ticks plenty of boxes linked with health and happiness.

THE myth that money doesn’t make us happy has been busted.

Australia’s biggest annual household survey has found working long hours and earning good money are linked with health and subjective wellbeing.

“Income does increase your life satisfaction. It is an important ingredient,” said Associate Professor Roger Wilkins, author of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey.

And working more than 10 hours a day was no bar to the good life, with workaholics scoring highly in the health and happiness stakes — up to a point.

“Professionals who work long hours tend to be higher earners and like their careers,” Professor Wilkins said.

“Once people get to very long hours, you can get a negative effect. And you certainly get a negative effect of being unemployed.”

PORTOFINO, ITALY - JUNE 26: Mariah Carey And James Packer are seen on June 26, 2015 in Portofino, . (Photo by Photopix/GC Images)

Homeowners, managers, clerical workers and sales professionals were best placed to secure stable, high paying jobs, and the survey found that you don’t need a sandstone education to do this.

Grads from prestigious halls of learning like Sydney, Melbourne and Monash universities — awash with arts students — saw their earnings outstripped by those from less salubrious institutions.

But keeping up with the Joneses takes a sustained effort, and if you’re not moving forwards, you’re going backwards.

About 40 per cent of full-time workers saw their real earnings drop each year, as the rate of inflation outstripped whatever measly pay rises they managed to secure.

The best way to boost earnings was to change jobs, which secured an average 25 per cent pay rise over five years among those surveyed, compared with up to 15 per cent for those who kept slogging away in the same role.

But if you’re thinking of quitting, you might want to find a new job first; about half of unemployed men surveyed, and 60 per cent of women, who moved out of full time, permanent employment, remained so for two or more years.

And the longer people were out of the job market, the less likely they were to return.

If you’re a married woman, expect to earn less and put up with a grumbling husband who would much rather you stay home to iron his sheets.

The study found men were happiest with their relationships when wives played a traditional homemaker role.

And heterosexual women recorded the most meagre earnings of all: just $676 a week an average in 2012.

Their lesbian or bisexual counterparts earned $778 a week, while gay or bisexual men took home $1006, and straight men $1265, on average.

Gina Liano, The Real Melbourne Housewives of Melbourne, pictured at Manhattan, Toorak. Picture: Mark Stewart

The gulf between low-income wages and high-flyers’ earnings is growing, with the Aussie welfare system coming to the rescue of those left behind.

Stragglers might be stuck in a poverty cycle; the survey found that people’s income levels were higher if their parents worked when they were aged 14.

But in the lucky country, taxpayers have evened the score for society’s poorest; the survey found household disposable incomes had remained stable over the 11 years to 2012.

The annual HILDA Survey is a snapshot of about 19,000 Australians’ lives, revisiting the same households each year since 2001 and noting how people’s lives have changed.

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Originally published as Secret to happiness and health: be a workaholic