New Horizons? Assessing General Public Preferences for a Wellbeing Economy in the Post-COVID-19 World

Objective: As societies emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are increasingly moving away from a focus on economic growth at any cost towards the principles of a wellbeing economy, focused on achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth and wellbeing. This study aimed to assess the relative importance to the Australian general public of the key principles of a wellbeing economy and to investigate heterogeneity in preferences between demographic subgroups.

Methods: An online survey was developed and delivered to a general public sample of 2042 Australian adults (aged 18 years and above). Respondents were invited to rank the key principles of a wellbeing economy (dignity, nature and climate, social connection, fairness and participation) plus two additional traditional economic indicators of societal success (‘economic growth’ and ‘economic prosperity’) in order of their relative importance for informing future policy directions. Data analysis was conducted using simple summative scoring, which involved the use of a point system allocated to rankings as a dependent variable. In addition, a rank-ordered logit model was used to explore preferences for the entire sample and subgroups defined by key socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: ‘Dignity’ (people have enough to live in comfort, safety and happiness) and ‘fairness’ (equal opportunity for all Australians and the gap between richest and poorest greatly reduced) were ranked as the most important priorities for the total sample and for key socio-demographic subgroups differentiated by age, level of education and level of socio-economic advantage. Traditional economic indicators of societal success including ‘economic prosperity’ and ‘economic growth’ were considered important but generally ranked below the principles of ‘dignity’ and ‘fairness’.

Conclusions: The findings indicate that government movements away from traditional economic indicators and towards new broader wellbeing economy measures of societal success are likely to be supported by the general public.