TRENDS IN AUSTRALIAN LIVING STANDARDS SINCE 1890

Australian real product per head grew slowly between the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s but quickly thereafter. This article investigates the extent to which changes in economic wellbeing matched these phases in economic growth. On a range of augmented income measures, the period 1889 to 1926 experienced slow growth in living standards, though the relative rate of improvement may have been greater than is suggested by the growth of real product. Some uncertainties remain, however, particularly as this period of slow growth saw relatively rapid increases in leisure and life expectancy.