by Cornelia Dlabaja, University of Vienna<\/p>\n
Austria has long been known for its high standard of living. Its gross national product per capita is USD 51,300, putting Austria thirteenth in a worldwide ranking (World Bank 2015). However, this does not mean that everyone is rich or well-situated in Vienna, or in Austria.<\/p>\n
A closer look at specific social groups reveals a rather segmented and increasingly polarized social structure: while about 12% of Austrian nationals are at risk of poverty, about 33% of non-national migrants face this poverty. Between 1990 and 2011 the income share of the poorest 20% declined by 47%, while the income share of the top 1% rose by 16%. As a whole, Austria is marked by high inequality in the distribution of wealth and property, with a Gini coefficient for gross financial assets of 0.75.<\/p>\n
What explains such stark segmentation in such a rich country? The Austrian education system contributes to an exceptional intergenerational transfer of social status: Children of university graduates have a probability of starting university 2.5 times higher than the children of parents who have not attended university. Then, as in many societies, levels of education determine income: Each additional year of education increases income by about 5.4%. Migrants are especially disadvantaged in the educational system (in part because foreign qualifications may not be recognized).<\/p>\n
Gender differences are also marked. Young Austrian women are now better educated than men, but women still earn 23.4% less per hour than their male colleagues. Austrian women also own less than men: Female single households hold 40% less private wealth than male single households. This gender inequality is linked to the Austrian welfare model, which can be described as \u201cconservative,\u201d fostering a traditional gendered division of labor through reliance on cash transfers.<\/p>\n
Austria\u2019s labor market policy increasingly fosters flexibilization and workfare, which has strengthened existing social inequalities: Migrants and women are more likely to be found in low-paid and precarious jobs. A low but growing unemployment rate has especially impacted low-skilled people and migrants.
\nA closer look thus shows that despite its apparent stability, Austria\u2019s social structure is increasingly polarized and segmented along gender and ethnic lines, with a tendency toward slowly-growing social inequality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Cornelia Dlabaja, University of Vienna Austria has long been known for its high standard of living. Its gross national product per capita is USD 51,300, putting Austria thirteenth in a worldwide ranking (World Bank 2015). However, this does not mean that everyone is rich or well-situated in Vienna, or in Austria. A closer look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[660],"tags":[981,1295],"class_list":["post-12845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","tag-poverty-wealth-austria","tag-short"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toktali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}