Explore Indicators
Confidence in future wellbeing
What is the indicator
This indicator examines how confident people feel that they will have opportunities for good wellbeing in the future. The timeframe asked about ranges; for example a person may be asked about:
- Whether they feel they personally will be better off in one year’s time, or five year’s time
- Whether they feel their children will have the same opportunities they have had
- Whether they feel future generations will be better or worse off than current generations.
There is no ‘right’ point in the future to ask about: both views about short-term and long-term wellbeing are important.
What can this tell us about wellbeing?
A recent report examining the wellbeing of people living in the Australian Capital Territory found that one of the strongest predictors of variation in current personal wellbeing is whether a person feels they will have good opportunities for their future wellbeing (see Schirmer et al. 2025). Having confidence that you can achieve the things you want to in life, or have pathways to achieving them, is well recognised as a determinant of personal wellbeing.
Advantages and disadvantages of the indicator
Advantages: This indicator examines a factor known to be an important determinant of personal wellbeing. It is helpful to understand whether local residents are feeling optimistic about their future opportunities, and those of future generations.
Disadvantages: Many of the factors causing low confidence in the future may be outside the direct control or influence of local communities: global economic disruption, climate change, and national events can all have a significant impact on confidence in the future. Nevertheless, it is useful to understand how significantly these external factors are in influencing wellbeing. It may be important to identify whether local or external factors are the biggest drivers of changes in confidence.
What measures should I use?
This indicator is measured by including questions about confidence in the future in a survey. Few of Australia’s large scale surveys collect data about confidence in the future. For example, the ANUpoll includes questions about whether Australians feel their children will have better or worse lives than their own. This provides important insights into trends nationwide, but does not provide data for smaller areas such as specific rural communities.
Some questions about confidence in the future have been included in the University of Canberra’s Regional Wellbeing Survey. These data are publicly available in two forms: data tables that are updated annually, and data are available in the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. These provide data for many, but not all, local government areas (LGAs) across Australia; where sample sizes are too small to show data for a specific LGA, data are made available for the larger region the LGA is a part of.
Measures
The Regional Wellbeing Survey began including questions about whether people feel their community has a bright future from 2013. In 2025, further questions were added asking about confidence in the future for a person’s household and future generations. Findings are published annually in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. Data are published for Australia, states and territories, regional Australia, and a range of geographic regions. The smallest scale at which data are available is the local government area (LGA), although sample sizes are too small to report data for some smaller population LGAs in rural Australia. Where this is the case, findings are published for a larger region that includes that LGA.
In addition to the questions included in the Regional Wellbeing Survey, other surveys have used a range of questions about future confidence, or it is possible to design your own based on consultation with local residents about what aspects of confidence in the future are most important to them. This can enable more targeted measures, for example about confidence in the future of key industries in the local area.
You can use the measure of confidence in future wellbeing from the Regional Wellbeing Survey in different ways:
- Directly source data about your community or region from the results published each year in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard
- Include the same questions in your own survey, and draw on Regional Wellbeing Survey data to provide comparison data that enables you to assess how your community is going compared to others of similar size, or to the average for regional areas in your state/territory, or across regional Australia, urban Australia, or Australia as a whole.
When interpreting this indicator, a decline in the proportion of people feeling confident in their and/or future generation’s prospects is an indicator of declining wellbeing, and vice versa.
The primary data source available for this indicator is the Regional Wellbeing Survey; measures have been expanded over time. Data are updated annually, and available in two formats: data tables, and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. The following questions are included in the Regional Wellbeing Survey:
- This community has a bright future (responses measured on a 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided)
- In five years’ time, do you feel you and your household will be… (responses measured on a 7 point scale from 1 (Much worse off) to 7 (much better off))
- Over their life, do you feel that children today will be worse or better off than their parents’ generation?
- (responses measured on a 7 point scale from 1 (Much worse off) to 7 (much better off))
Similar questions have been included in some other surveys, including the Living well in the ACT region survey (conducted annually and producing data for the Australian Capital Territory region).
The questions used in the Regional Wellbeing Survey, as well as other publicly available survey questions about confidence in the future, can be used in your own surveys.