Australia is the lucky country in every way but one

AUSTRALIA is the lucky country in every way but one, according to a new report.

We have been ranked as the happiest industrialised nation for the fourth year in a row, according to the OECD’s How’s Life? report.

When compared to 36 other developed nations, Australia performs strongly in 10 out of 11 wellbeing indicators.

The only area where Aussies fall down is in work-life balance, where we rank among the bottom 20 per cent of countries.

Based on 2382 people surveyed in the three years to March, Australians were most concerned with seeking a better balance between their work and personal lives.

This finding is backed up in an earlier University of South Australia study that found a quarter of Australians felt work frequently interfered with other life activities.

Australia leads the world in the “civic engagement and governance” dimension, which reflects our high voter participation and healthy number of people who said they had volunteered their time or helped out someone.

We are also in the top 20 per cent when it comes to jobs and earnings, personal security, housing, health status and environmental quality.

Although job security seems to have been a major contributor to Australia’s high ranking, English cricketer Kevin Pietersen tweeted a different theory yesterday.

Australia has also fared well thanks to the nation weathering the global financial crisis better than the rest of the world.

“The average Australian household has generally been spared by the crisis, which in other OECD countries has been particularly visible when looking at household income, jobs, life satisfaction and civic engagement,” the report states.

Between 2007 and 2011, Australia’s cumulative household disposable income grew 9 per cent, which was one of the largest in the OECD, while countries in the eurozone fell by an average 1 per cent.