New times, old beliefs: Projecting the future size of religions in Austria

The relative sizes of secular and religious populations belong to the most important social characteristics of each country. In the wake of religious change, family behaviour, including marriage and childbearing, is likely to be altered. European demographic trends, including those of late childbearing and low fertility are also likely to change when there is a growth of religious groups where conversion/secularisation rates are low and childbearing levels are high. We project the membership size of the various religious groupings until 2051 for Austria, a country where the religion question is included in the census, allowing detailed and accurate projections to be made. We consider relative fertility rates, religion-specific emigration and immigration, conversion rates and intergenerational transmission of religious affiliation. Our estimates suggest that the Catholic proportion will decrease from 75% in 2001 to less than 50% in 2051. The Muslim population, which grew from 1% in 1981 to 4% in 2001, will represent 14% to 18% of the Austrian population by 2051, and could represent up to 32% of those below 15 years of age. The Protestants’ population share will be stable at around 4%, while up to 34% of the population will be without religion.

Secularism or catholicism? The religious composition of the United States to 2043

We project the religious composition of the United States to 2043, considering fertility differences, migration, intergenerational religious transmission and conversion by 11 ethnoreligious groups. If fertility and migration trends continue, Hispanic Catholics will experience rapid growth, expanding from 10 to 18 percent of the population between 2003 and 2043. Protestants could decrease from 47 to 39 percent over the same period, establishing Catholicism as the largest religion among younger age groups. Immigration drives growth among Hindus and Muslims, while low fertility explains decline among Jews. The religiosity of immigrants combined with the low fertility of nonreligious Americans results in a gradual decline, and subsequent reversal of, secularization, with the nonreligious population share expected to plateau before 2043

Inequality in Educational Development from 1900 to 2015

The industrial revolution marked a turning point in mankind as it not only initiated an economic turn from predominantly agricultural to industrialized societies but also shaped the need for an education revolution. This was the period when most industrialized societies implemented compulsory schooling systems and created the opportunity for universal access to basic education and later medium and higher education levels. However, this did not occur at the same speed everywhere, generating divergence between countries, and subsocieties within countries, whether it was at the level of residence, gender, generation, or class. Based on a dataset developed at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital reconstructing levels of education in 5-year steps by age (5-year age groups) and sex for a large number of countries in the world, we look at the education transition from 1900 to 2015 to uncover different patterns and pathways of educational improvements that might explain the differences in the level of human capital today

Neue demographische Szenarien zur Zukunft der Evangelischen Kirche in Österreich

Die Mitgliederzahl und Struktur der Evangelischen Kirche A.B. und H.B. in Österreich haben sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten deutlich verändert. 1971 war die Evangelische Kirche noch die zweitgrößte Kategorie in der Religionsstatistik (nach der röm.-kath.Kirche), 1981 wurde die Evangelische Kirche bereits von der Gruppe ohne religiöses Bekenntnis überholt. Österreichweit liegen die Evangelischen auch heute noch an dritter Stelle, obwohl die Zahl der Muslime nicht mehr viel geringer ist. Was bringen die nächsten Jahrzehnte für die Entwicklung der Kirchenmitgliedschaft? Mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Zahl der Kirchenmitglieder weiter abnehmen und ihre Altersstruktur deutlich älter werden. Durch die Tatsache, dass in Österreich derzeit über 80 Prozent aller Evangelischen einen nichtevangelischen Partner heiraten, kommt der Frage nach dem Religionsbekenntnis der Kinder aus diesen Partnerschaften eine ganz zentrale Rolle für die Zukunft der Evangelischen Kirche in Österreich zu. In dieser kleinen demographischen Studie wurden Zahlen aus den Volkszählungen von 1971 bis 2001 analysiert, sowie die Entwicklung der Einund Austritte, Taufen und Beerdigungen in den letzten Jahrzehnten betrachtet. Schließlich wurden alternative Szenarien zur Zahl und Altersstruktur der Evangelischen AB in Österreich bis zum Jahr 2031 berechnet

Towards a Catholic North America? Projections of religion in Canada and the US beyond the mid-21st century

Religion and religiosity are important identity markers, and changes in a country's religious composition may affect its culture, value orientations and policies. In recent decades the Protestants in both the US and Canada have lost their absolute population majority. In the present study we investigate the future of the religious composition in both the US and Canada jointly until the 2060s taking into consideration changes due to demographic forces, the level and composition of migration, fertility differentials and intergenerational religious transmissions. The joint focus on both the US and Canada allows one to better understand the commonalities and differences between these two nations which are tightly knit in terms of geography, politics, economics and culture. The projections reveal that North America should not become Catholic by mid-century but close to, with an increasing importance of minorities in the religious landscape

Ageing dynamics of a human-capital-specific population: A demographic perspective

Background: Research on how rising human capital affects the consequences of population ageing rarely considers the fact that the human capital of the elderly population is composed in a specific way that is shaped by their earlier schooling and work experience. For an elderly population of a fixed size and age-sex composition, this entails that the higher its human capital, the greater the total amount of public pensions to be paid. Objective: The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the link between human capital and retiree benefits and its effect on population ageing from a demographic viewpoint. Methods: We construct an old age dependency ratio (OADR), in which each person, whether in the numerator or the denominator, is assigned the number of units corresponding to his/her level of human capital. Based on data for Italy, we study the dynamics of this human-capital-specific OADR with the help of multistate population projections to 2107. Results: Our results show that under specific conditions a constant or moderately growing human capital may aggravate the consequences of population ageing rather than alleviate them. Conclusions: With those findings, the authors would like to stimulate the debate on the search for demographic and/or socio-economic solutions to the challenges posed by population ageing

Age, gender, and territory of COVID-19 infections and fatalities

In this note we explore the main demographic differentials in the spread and impact of COVID-19 paying special attention to the combined effect of age and gender, and to the differences at territorial level where population density plays a large role in the diffusion and outcome of the disease in terms of morbidity and mortality. The information is important for designing an exit strategy from COVID-19 and anticipating the rebound for certain segments of the population with differential medical needs, particularly those living in high-density locations.JRC.E.6-Demography, Migration and Governanc

Ethique et performance en secteur de soins, des logiques et des contraintes souvent contradictoires : comment sortir de ces conflits de logiques ?

L'apparent paradoxe de la performance et de l'éthique dans le milieu hospitalier ouvre des pistes de réflexion pour améliorer les logiques de valorisation de ces activités dont les outputs demeurent mal-évalués, notamment à l'échelle de notre société. Ces logiques, loin de se limiter à un questionnement purement théorique, rappellent que la santé doit s'envisager en termes d'investissement et non de coût.The apparent paradox of performance and ethics in the hospital environment opens avenues for thoughts to improve the logic of valuing these activities, the outputs of which remain poorly evaluated, particularly at the scale of our society. These logics, far from being limited to a purely theoretical questioning, remind us that health must be considered in terms of investment and not of cost