Public Aspirations and Public Policy, 1978

The purpose of this survey was to measure levels of life satisfaction, and to discover the correlation between social background, personality, social networks, domain satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. The main measures used were Andrews and Withy's Life-as-a-whole Index (1976) and Bradburn's scales of Positive Affect, Negative Affect and Affect Balance (1969). Topics include perceptions of well-being and satisfaction with various facets of life - inter alia leisure; marriage and children; working conditions; health; community; personal qualities; family relations; political issues; environmental attitudes; Australia's objectives in the next decade; political parties and political involvement, and mass media. A second round of satisfaction questions is then asked. Background variables include age, country of birth, marital status, income, education, employment, occupation, family size and ages of children, sex, breadwinner's usual occupation, religion and regularity of attendance, eligibility to vote at federal elections, number of hours of television viewing in an average week and perceptions of social class.