The formation of a new transnational labour market: Polish labour migration to Vienna in the 1990s

After the fall of the Iron Curtain Austria's position within the framework of Europe's migration league table shifted from a marginal one to that of an appealing "Gateway to the Golden West" with a strong attraction for migrants. So it is not surprising that the inflow of labour force from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary was growing during the 1990s. This has led to the formation of a new transnational labour market which includes the eastern regions of Austria and the countries of East-Central Europe. In 1981 5,911 Polish citizens legally lived and worked in Austria. In 1991 the figure was three times as high (18,321), including 8,932 Polish citizens who had taken Austrian citizenship in the meantime. The highest number of labour migrants from Poland (19,421 persons) was registered in 1995. In 1995-96 there was a clear decline in numbers. As the range of information about Polish migration to Austria provided by official census data was quite inadequate we made field research among Vienna's Polish community. The location chosen for the inquiry was the Polish church, one of the favoured meeting points of the Poles. A sample of 408 Poles were interviewed during a spring week in 1993. Naturally, the financial and personal resources of our Institute were too meagre to aspire to an overall study of Vienna's manifold "Polonia". So we tried to concentrate our analysis on some specific topics listed below: - socio-demographic characteristics; - educational background and qualifications level; - labour market position (distribution of migrants among the sectors of the economy, the role of brain drain and its transformation into brain waste, illegal employment); - position on the Viennese housing market; - spatial distribution of the areas of origin in Poland. The main empirical results of the survey which needs stressing are: - the selectivity of Polish immigration by socio-demographic criteria; - the broad variety of family and household structures; - the uneven spatial distribution of the areas of origin of Viennese immigrants; - the overrepresentation of the large urban regions among migration origins; - the importance ot the mainly economic pull factors of the Austrian labour market; - the growing importance of temporary migration; - the high proportion of highly-qualified personnel among migrants; - a broad range of occupations; - a substantial degree of dequalification and brain waste; - an upward occupational mobility which depends on the duration of stay in Vienna; - a close relation of size and standard of dwelling and length of stay in Vienna; - significantly better housing conditions than those of Turkish or Balkanese guest-workers; - the phenomenon of large-scale illegal employment.

Frustrating Beginnings: How Social Ties Compensate Housing Integration Barriers for Afghan Refugees in Vienna

In this article, we present findings from a recent (2017-2018) qualitative survey on the integration of Afghan refugees in Vienna. Vienna is by far the largest city in Austria with a diversified labour and housing market and a multi-faceted (migrant) economy. It doubtlessly is the most attractive ‘arrival city’ in Austria. Moreover, Vienna has received the bulk of refugees during the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015–2016 and before. The analysis will focus on Ager and Strang’s (2008) argument, which characterizes housing as a core domain in integration. Housing constitutes a potential means of supporting integration into domains other than the labour market. In the process of housing integration, researchers (Aigner, 2018; Borevi & Bengtsson, 2015) have emphasized the relevance of refugees’ social ties with family and co-ethnic groups, whereas the importance of inter-ethnic networking with members of the receiving society remains insufficiently explored. The majority of the 65 interviewees had emphasized the importance of refugees’ social ties for their efforts towards structural integration. This analysis therefore aims at describing Afghans’ challenging access paths into the local housing market, and the outstanding compensatory relevance of social ties in this process. Thus, we can identify special constraints (e.g., ‘Afghanophobia,’ exploitative conditions) and coping strategies of this under-researched ‘newcomer’ group of refugees in Austria

Distinct transcriptional changes in non-small cell lung cancer patients associated with multi-antigenic RNActive® CV9201 immunotherapy

ABSTRACT We recently completed a phase I/IIa trial of RNActive® CV9201, a novel mRNA-based therapeutic vaccine targeting five tumor-associated antigens in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The aim of the study presented here was to comprehensively analyze changes in peripheral blood during the vaccination period and to generate hypotheses facilitating the identification of potential biomarkers correlating with differential clinical outcomes post RNActive® immunotherapy. We performed whole-genome expression profiling in a subgroup of 22 stage IV NSCLC patients before and after initiation of treatment with CV9201. Utilizing an analytic approach based on blood transcriptional modules (BTMs), a previously described, sensitive tool for blood transcriptome data analysis, patients segregated into two major clusters based on transcriptional changes post RNActive® treatment. The first group of patients was characterized by the upregulation of an expression signature associated with myeloid cells and inflammation, whereas the other group exhibited an expression signature associated with T and NK cells. Patients with an enrichment of T and NK cell modules after treatment compared to baseline exhibited significantly longer progression-free and overall survival compared to patients with an upregulation of myeloid cell and inflammatory modules. Notably, these gene expression signatures were mutually exclusive and inversely correlated. Furthermore, our findings correlated with phenotypic data derived by flow cytometry as well as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio. Our study thus demonstrates non-overlapping, distinct transcriptional profiles correlating with survival warranting further validation for the development of biomarker candidates for mRNA-based immunotherapy