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Ferdi Botha is a Principal Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. He holds a PhD in Social and Economic Sciences from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, awarded in 2017, an M.Com in Applied Econometrics with distinction from the University of the Free State in South Africa in 2009, a B.Com Honours in Economics from the same institution in 2008, and a B.Com in Law with distinction completed between 2005 and 2007. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne in 2019 as a Research Fellow, Botha served as Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University in South Africa from 2017 to 2019, following earlier roles as Senior Lecturer and Lecturer at the same institution and as Assistant Officer at the University of the Free State.
Botha’s research centers on subjective well-being, the economics of mental health and wellbeing, household financial decision-making and financial wellbeing, poverty and socio-economic disadvantage, and family and household wellbeing outcomes. His work frequently draws on longitudinal data such as the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and has been published in journals including Social Science & Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Population Economics, and Applied Research in Quality of Life. Notable contributions include studies on the reciprocal relationship between financial well-being and mental health, the effects of commuting and working from home on mental health, generational differences in mental health trends, and the impact of financial hardships on intra-household resource allocation. Botha has received a 2024 Best Paper Prize and maintains an active profile with extensive citations on Google Scholar. He also contributes to commissioned reports and public engagement on topics such as voter disaffection, sports betting, and loneliness in the workplace.
Explore the 2026 University of Melbourne pets happiness study revealing no causal link between pet ownership and improved life satisfaction or mental health. Implications for Canada's booming pet market and university research.
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