Families in Australia Survey: Towards COVID Normal

Following the first Life During COVID-19 survey (May-June 2020), AIFS launched its second Families in Australia Survey, Towards COVID Normal, in November 2020.

The Towards COVID Normal survey ran from 17 November to 22 December 2020. We asked Australians 18 years and over to tell us about how they and their families are going as we head heading towards a time that might be described as 'COVID normal'.

How has family, social and daily life changed? What challenges do families continue to face? And what support would help right now?

We wanted to understand how different aspects of family life continue to be affected by COVID-19, including: relationships with other family members; work; education; finances; and mental health and wellbeing.

A series of reports from the survey will be published in the first half of 2021.

More information

Learn more information about the Families in Australia project, including reports from the first survey, or contact us at fia-survey@aifs.gov.au.

Privacy and ethics

AIFS adheres to strict privacy and ethics practices. This research has been approved by the AIFS Human Research Ethics Committee.

All information collected from you in the Family Survey will be kept confidentially and will be stored securely in accordance with the AIFS Privacy Policy. Your responses to the survey will be de-identified and will be accessible only to the members of the AIFS research team on a need-to-know basis. The survey responses will be stored on secured servers onsite at AIFS in Melbourne, Australia.

AIFS respects and upholds your rights under the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) contained in the Privacy Act 1988(Cth) (Privacy Act). Please see our Privacy Policy regarding our obligation to protect your privacy rights.

You can contact our privacy team if you have any questions regarding how we manage, use and store personal information.

Email: aifs-privacy@aifs.gov.au
Telephone: (03) 9214 7888

If you would like more information about the survey you can read the Participant Information Sheet.

Publications

A year in review: how we experienced 2020
Some early findings from the Towards COVID Normal survey
Research Snapshot — April 2021

A Year in Review presents a short summary of early findings from the Towards COVID Normal survey on how Australian families experienced 2020.

Families in Australia Survey Report no. 1: Connection to family, friends and community
Research Report — May 2021

This report looks at connection with others - from family members living elsewhere to the local community

Families in Australia Survey Report no. 2: Employment & work-family balance in 2020
Research Report — June 2021

This report looks at families' participation in employment and experiences of work-family balance using the second survey of the Families in Australia.