Life in Sydney

Ipsos Public Affairs and the Committee for Sydney share results from their co-designed Life in Sydney annual survey presented at the Sydney Summit.

The Life in Sydney survey is an annual survey created by Ipsos Public Affairs in partnership with the Committee for Sydney asking Sydneysiders. It sets the scene on the big issues facing Sydney at the start of each year.

Open the 2025 edition

Below you can find the 2021 to 2025 Life in Sydney reports proudly co-created by Ipsos Public Affairs and the Committee for Sydney as well as a summary of the most recent report.

2025 Life in Sydney summary

The 2025 Sydney Summit is the Committee for Sydney's essential half-day leadership conference, where Sydney's leaders and decision-makers join the stage with new voices to set the agenda for the future of our city. This year’s theme is ‘No time to waste’. Ipsos presented our annual Life in Sydney research in collaboration with Committee for Sydney.

While Sydney's residents generally express satisfaction on living in Sydney, the rising cost of living and housing remain the top concerns. 66% of Sydneysiders cited cost of living, and 17% cited housing affordability as reasons for their dissatisfaction with Life in Sydney. Sydneysiders support increasing density ‘in your own suburbs, and year on year there are increases in the number of people who say they would consider living in an apartment. However, half of Sydneysider still resist the idea of raising a family in an apartment, citing space and privacy as the main reasons.

We also discovered some interesting findings around care – a lot of Sydneysiders are doing care work and most of this work is unpaid work, and disproportionately affects women. Women spend 13 hours on housework and 9 hours on childcare weekly, compared to men's 8 and 4 hours, respectively. Women are also more likely to formally care for both parents and children at the same time.

The Life in Sydney survey is an annual survey created by Ipsos Public Affairs in partnership with the Committee for Sydney asking Sydneysiders. It sets the scene on the big issues facing Sydney at the start of each year.

Technical notes

The Ipsos Climate Change Report is conducted annually via online panel. Each year approximately 1000 Sydneysiders adults aged 18+ are asked a series of questions about their their quality of life in Sydney and a range of different issues in Sydney. Data is weighted to match the profile of the population.

The precision of Ipsos online polls are calculated using a credibility interval with a poll of 1,000 accurate to +/- 3.5 percentage points and of 500 accurate to +/- 4.8 percentage points. For more information on the Ipsos use of credibility intervals, please visit www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-03/IpsosPA_CredibilityIntervals.pdf

Polling Methodology Disclosure Statements

APC Quality Logo Ipsos believes in transparency around the polling we undertake. Further to this, and as a founding member of the Australian Polling Council, we are pleased to comply with the Council’s Code of Conduct, including making available a Methodology Disclosure Statement around each of the our published polls, including our Ipsos Issues Monitor. These statements can be accessed here.

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