The Convergence of the Middle Class. New evidence for Europe

We analyse how the size of the middle class has evolved in 26 European countries between 2004 and 2013. With data from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we define households with a median equivalised disposable household income between 75% and 125% to be middle class. We find that in 16 out of 26 countries the middle class decreases and identify an increase in income polarization in all these countries, with the exception of Greece. We examine whether changes regarding the middle class can be attributed to changing household structure, unemployment rates or redistributive policies. Our results suggest that redistributive policies are most influential for explaining the change across country groups, whereas the other factors do not seem to have an impact. However, there is a great variation between countries. Due to government transfers and taxes, middle class increased 17 percentage points in Iceland, while only by 5.3 percentage points in Estonia. Exploring potential explanations for this gap, we define country groups with similar socio-economic policies and institutions. We observe that Social-Democratic countries and Central European economies have the biggest, while Baltic and Mediterranean countries show the smallest middle class. Analysing the impact of redistributive policies we find considerable differences between country groups and can show that liberal market economies do most, whereas Baltic countries do least for their middle class.Series: INEQ Working Paper Serie

The Decline of the Middle Class: New Evidence for Europe

This article examines how the middle class has fared in twenty-six European countries between 2004 and 2014 based on European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data. We define individuals living in households with a median equivalized disposable household income between 75% and 125% to be middle class. We find that the middle class has decreased in eighteen out of twenty-six countries, which is accompanied by an increase of income polarization. Income redistribution is most influential for explaining differences in the size of the middle class across European countries

Zeit und Vergänglichkeit in den Frühlingsoden des Horaz

Horaz warnt den Leser, nicht aufgrund falscher Bestrebungen, wie z.B. Gier nach Reichtum oder Ehre, den jetzigen Moment zu vergessen

Neue atypische Beschäftigung in Österreich: was wir wissen, was nicht und wieso Corona die Dringlichkeit einer soliden Datenbasis verdeutlicht

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit neuer atypischer Beschäftigung in Österreich. Insbesondere geht es uns darum festzustellen, ob und in welchem Ausmaß neue Beschäftigungsformen in Befragungen erfasst werden. Wir argumentieren, dass neben neuen Beschäftigungschancen auch alte und neue Risiken auftreten, insbesondere Risiken im Bereich der sozialen Absicherung. Vor diesem Hintergrund werten wir den österreichischen Mikrozensus aus, anhand von unterschiedlichen Dimensionen zu neuen Arbeitsformen. Weiters beschäftigen wir uns mit den ungleichen Folgen der Corona-Pandemie auf neue atypisch Beschäftigte. Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse sind: Neue atypische Beschäftigung lässt sich mit herkömmlichen Arbeitskräfteerhebungen nicht quantifizieren. Die COVID-19-Krise verdeutlicht Lücken der sozialen Absicherung von neuen atypisch Beschäftigten, insbesondere der neuen Selbstständigen. Auch zeigt sich während der Krise die unzureichende Vertretung ihrer Interessen

Integrating environmental issues within party manifestos: exploring trends across European welfare states

Climate change challenges the existing structures of the economy, welfare states and societies in general in various ways. Among others, it might contribute to widening national and global social inequalities and create new risks for societies. While narratives in the past often focused on trade-offs between environmental issues and social and economic interests, increasingly there is a recognition of the need to think about the different policy domains together (e.g., Jakobsson et al., 2018). Yet, although governments across Europe have recognized their responsibility to act against climate change, the implementation is slow and in many cases environmental issues have not yet been sufficiently linked to other policy fields (Gough, 2016)

Vermögen und Reichtum in Österreich

Vermögen ist in Österreich sehr ungleich verteilt. Seit der HFCS-Vermögenserhebung der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank (OeNB) und von Wissenschaftler:innen durchgeführten Hochschätzungen lässt sich besser beziffern, wie groß die Vermögenskonzentration tatsächlich ist. Österreich steht innerhalb der Eurozone mit an der Spitze der Vermögensungleichheit. Die große Mehrheit der in Österreich lebenden Bevölkerung empfindet die bestehende Vermögensverteilung als ungerecht. Vermögensteuern sind ein Weg, die Schieflage zu reduzieren. Das reichste 1 % verfügt über rund 40 % des gesamten Nettovermögens, während die ärmere Hälfte gerade einmal 2,8 % des Nettovermögens besitzt. Die hohe Vermögenskonzentration hat negative wirtschaftliche, demokratiepolitische und ökologische Konsequenzen. Der Überreichtum kann durch Vermögenssteuern reduziert werden.In Austria, wealth is very unequally distributed. Thanks to the HFCS wealth survey conducted by the Austrian National Bank and projections by researchers, it has become easier to quantify the actual extent of wealth concentration. Regarding wealth, Austria is one of the most unequal countries in the Euro area. The vast majority of the population of Austria perceives the existing distribution of wealth as unfair. Wealth taxes are one way to reduce this imbalance. The richest 1 % owns around 40 % of the total net wealth, while the poorer half owns just 2.8 % of net wealth. High wealth concentration has negative impacts on economy, democracy, and the environment. Wealth concentration can be reduced through the introduction of wealth taxes

Home, sweet home? The impact of working from home on the division of unpaid work during the COVID-19 lockdown

A lockdown implies a shift from the public to the private sphere, and from market to non-market production, thereby increasing the volume of unpaid work. Already before the pandemic, unpaid work was disproportionately borne by women. This paper studies the effect of working from home for pay (WFH), due to a lockdown, on the change in the division of housework and childcare within couple households. While previous studies on the effect of WFH on the reconciliation of work and family life and the division of labour within the household suffered from selection bias, we are able to identify this effect by drawing upon the shock of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Austria. The corresponding legal measures left little choice over WFH. In any case, WFH is exogenous, conditional on a small set of individual and household characteristics we control for. We employ data from a survey on the gendered aspects of the lockdown. The dataset includes detailed information on time use during the lockdown and on the quality and experience of WFH. Uniquely, this survey data also includes information on the division, and not only magnitude, of unpaid work within households. Austria is an interesting case in this respect as it is characterized by very conservative gender norms. The results reveal that the probability of men taking on a larger share of housework increases if men are WFH alone or together with their female partner. By contrast, the involvement of men in childcare increased only in the event that the female partner was not able to WFH. Overall, the burden of childcare, and particularly homeschooling, was disproportionately borne by women.Series: INEQ Working Paper Serie

Fast-neutron induced pre-equilibrium reactions on 55Mn and 63,65Cu at energies up to 40 MeV

Excitation functions were measured for the $^{55}$Mn(n,2n)$^{54}$Mn, $^{55}$Mn(n,$\alpha$)$^{52}$V, $^{63}$Cu(n,$\alpha$)$^{60}$Co, $^{65}$Cu(n,2n)$^{64}$Cu, and $^{65}$Cu(n,p)$^{65}$Ni reactions from 13.47 to 14.83 MeV. The experimental cross sections are compared with the results of calculations including all activation channels for the stable isotopes of Mn and Cu, for neutron incident energies up to 50 MeV. Within the energy range up to 20 MeV the model calculations are most sensitive to the parameters related to nuclei in the early stages of the reaction, while the model assumptions are better established by analysis of the data in the energy range 20-40 MeV. While the present analysis has taken advantage of both a new set of accurate measured cross sections around 14 MeV and the larger data basis fortunately available between 20 and 40 MeV for the Mn and Cu isotopes, the need of additional measurements below as well as above 40 MeV is pointed out. Keywords: 55Mn, 63,65Cu, E$\leq$40 MeV, Neutron activation cross section measurements, Nuclear reactions, Model calculations, Manganese, CopperComment: 39 pages, 12 figure

A cross-cultural study on odor-elicited life stage-associations

Associative conceptualization plays an important role in how we perceive and interact with our environment. Particularly odor associations can be highly vivid and often long-lasting due to their close connection with our episodic memory and emotions. Based on the findings of a study conducted in Austria in 2017, this work was carried out to investigate odor-elicited life stage-associations (OELSA) in seven nations and to identify potential similarities and differences in conceptualizing odor impressions across these nations. A total of 1144 adults (aged 21–60) from Austria, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Thailand, USA, and Vietnam participated in this study. Nine odors (vanilla, orange, lemon, mint, coconut, basil, rose, anise, and hay) were presented to the participants, and they were asked to answer questions about their spontaneous associations with life stages. The results indicate the existence of OELSA in all investigated nations. For example, vanilla was predominantly assigned to children in all nations, while hay was primarily assigned to elder people. While most of the investigated odors were most frequently associated with adults, some significant differences in OELSA were observed between the different nationalities. For instance, mint was more frequently associated with children by Australian participants compared to participants from all other nations, while coconut was more strongly associated with children by the Vietnamese participants compared to all other participants. The results of this study demonstrate the existence of consistent life stage-related associations elicited by certain odors across different nations and cultures and, at the same time points to differences in life stage-related association with certain odors between the nations. Since this work was not designed to identify the reasons for these differences, we can only make assumptions about the potential underlying causes for these behaviors

Illusion oder Wirklichkeit? : Wahrnehmungsphänomene im praxisorientierten Biologieunterricht mit fächerübergreifenden Aspekten für Psychologie und Philosophie

Ausgangspunkt dieser Diplomarbeit war der Wunsch nach einer praxisbezogenen Materialiensammlung, welche den Lernenden auf schülerInnen-aktivierende und spielerische Weise die faszinierende Welt der Wahrnehmungsphänomene näherbringen soll. Hierfür wurde ein Methodenmanual erarbeitet und im Zuge der Diplomarbeit erprobt. Diese Unterrichtsmaterialien ermöglichen es den Lernenden, eigenständig und aktiv am Unterrichtsgeschehen mitzuwirken. Der Nutzen bezog sich dabei auf eine über die Fachgrenzen hinausreichende Perspektiveneinnahme, sowie eine Erweiterung des VerhaltensRepertoires um ausgewählte Kompetenzen. Fachkompetenz alleine reicht als Vorbereitung auf das Berufsleben nicht aus, sondern muss unter anderem um die Grundpfeiler Teamfähigkeit und Selbständigkeit erweitert werden. Aus diesem Grund hat sich ein handelnder Umgang im Unterricht unter Einbezug der Lebenswirklichkeit der Lernenden bewährt. Um mehr Effizienz im Lernverlauf zu erzielen, wurde bei der Erstellung der Unterrichtsmaterialien insbesondere jenen Lehrmethoden der Vorzug gegeben, welche sich an den Vorstellungen und Interessen der SchülerInnen orientieren. Im Zuge dieser Diplomarbeit konnte bestätigt werden, dass ein aktiv-konstruktiver Zugang die Lernenden im eigenständigen Erarbeiten kontextgebundener Lerninhalte bestärkt. Zudem ließ sich zeigen, dass sich fächerübergreifende Themen besonders für eine schülerInnen-orientierte Herangehensweise eignen, um die Lernenden bei ihren individuellen Interessen und Vorkenntnissen abzuholen. Auch dem vernetzen Denken kommt diese Herangehensweise zugute. Aus Gründen der Qualitätssicherung wurden die erstellten Unterrichtsmaterialien an fünf verschiedenen AHS-Schulen in unterschiedlichen Schulstufen getestet.The focus of this thesis is the elaboration of a practice-oriented collection of teaching materials which familiarize the students with the fascinating world of perception phenomena in an activating and playful manner. For that reason a manual of methods was developed and tested in classroom. The respective materials enable the learners to actively and independently participate in class. Consequently, the pupils can both broaden their perspectives and enhance their behavioural competencies. Professional knowledge alone is not sufficient in order to succeed in working life. The ability to work independently in a team is equally important. For this reason activating teaching methods that also take into account the living environment of the learners have proved in practice. The material collection mainly includes methods which correspond with the preferences and interests of the surveyed pupils. This diploma thesis supports the argument that active-constructive teaching methods strengthen the learners capacity to independently elaborate knowledge. Moreover, the thesis emphasizes the fact that interdisciplinary topics are particularly suitable for a student-oriented approach: Thus, individual interests and prior knowledge of the learners can be considered, which is also important for the concept of joined-up thinking. For reasons of quality assurance the developed materials were tested in different grades of five different grammar schools.vorgelegt von Sabrina DerndorferAbweichender Titel laut Übersetzung des Verfassers/der VerfasserinZusammenfassungen in Deutsch und EnglischKarl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Diplomarbeit, 2017(VLID)206218