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.

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

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

Managing Medical Errors in a University Hospital: How to Handle the Internal Learning–External Protection Paradox?

Hospitals are looking to strengthen their safety culture by learning internally from medical errors that occur to prevent them from happening again. This implies creating an atmosphere of psychological safety that encourages errors to be reported. Only open communication from teams can help to improve practices. Also, many establishments have implemented no-punishment charters, creating a policy of tolerance of errors. However, a medical error can become a legal issue. The fact that a court of law can use anything hospital staff have said or written after an adverse event has occurred encourages defensive communication to protect oneself from outside stakeholders. To date, the literature on medical errors has not studied how hospitals overcome this contradiction. In this qualitative research, we use paradox theory in the case of a single university hospital to understand how a hospital confronted with medical errors can effectively manage the internal learning–external protection paradox. A deeper study of this specific context also allows us to supplement the literature on organizational paradoxes. We demonstrate how the interactions between different levels of analysis contribute to operationalizing paradox management in a dynamic and characteristic way, on the one hand, and what makes it effective, on the other hand

Demographic Profile of the Arab Region: Realizing the Demographic Dividend

The paper provides a detailed overview of population dynamics and trends in the Arab region. Furthermore, it explains the concept of demographic dividend and timing of the window of opportunity. With a view to enable countries in the region to reap the benefits of the changing population structure, the window is calculated for each country. The last part of the paper presents four case studies of countries that benefitted from their demographic dividend

Integration of postpartum care into child health and immunization services in Burkina Faso: Findings from a cross-sectional study

Background: The Missed Opportunities for Maternal and Infant Health (MOMI) project, which aimed at upgrading maternal and infant postpartum care (PPC), implemented a package of interventions including the integration of maternal PPC in infant immunization services in 12 health facilities in Kaya Health district in Burkina Faso from 2013 to 2015. This paper assesses the coverage and the quality of combined mother-infant PPC in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services (RMNCH).Methods: We conducted a mixed methods study with cross-sectional surveys before and after the intervention in the Kaya health and demographic surveillance system. On the quantitative side, two household surveys were performed in 2012 (N = 757) and in 2014 (N = 754) among mothers within one year postpartum. The analysis examines the result of the intervention by the date of delivery at three key time points in the PPC schedule: the first 48 h, days 6–10 and during weeks 6–8 and beyond. On the qualitative side, in depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations were conducted in four health facilities in 2012 and 2015. They involved mothers in the postpartum period, facility and community health workers, and other stakeholders. We performed a descriptive analysis and a two-sample test of proportions of the quantitative data. The qualitative data were recorded, transcribed and analysed along the themes relevant for the intervention.Results: The findings show that the WHO guidelines, in terms of content and improvement of maternal PPC, were followed for physical examinations and consultations. They also show a significant increase in the coverage of maternal PPC services from 50% (372/752) before the intervention to 81% (544/672) one year after the start of the intervention. However, more women were assessed at days 6–10 than at later visits. Integration of maternal PPC was low, with little improvements in history taking and physical examination of mothers in immunization services. While health workers are polyvalent, difficulties in restructuring and organizing services hindered the integration.Conclusion: Unless a comprehensive strategy of integration within RMNCH services is implemented to address the primary health care challenges within the health system, integration will not yield the desired results