Consequences of International Migration on the Size and Composition of Religious Groups in Austria

Scientific knowledge on a population’s religious composition is essential to understand the challenges faced by societies today. It arises in opposition to speculations about the actual size of religious groups that have been increasingly present in the public discourse in Europe for many years. This is particularly the case in Austria where the flows of refugees and migrants coming from the Middle East and Afghanistan have intensified since 2011 and culminated in 2015. These sparked a debate on the actual size of the Muslim population in Austria. This study fills the gap by presenting estimates of the religious composition for 2016 and projections until 2046 based on several scenarios related to the three major forces affecting the religious composition: migration (including asylum seekers), differential fertility and secularisation. The projections demonstrate that religious diversity is bound to increase, mostly through immigration and fertility. We further focus on the role and implications of international migration on the age and sex composition within the six religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, other religions and unaffiliated. We find that the volume and composition of international migrants can maintain youthful age compositions in minority religions—Muslims and Orthodox. Sustained immigration leads to slower ageing but does not stop or reverse the process. The disparity between older majority and younger minority religious groups will further increase the cultural generation gap

Religious Denominations in Vienna & Austria: Baseline Study for 2016-Scenarios until 2046

The publication presents the results of the research project “Religious Denominations in Vienna & Austria: Baseline study for 2016 – Scenarios until 2046” conducted by the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The aim of this study project was twofold: Firstly, to estimate the religious composition of the population of Austria and Vienna in 2016 taking into account the most recent migration movements; and secondly, to project the population of Austria and Vienna from 2016 to 2046 based on several scenarios related mostly to the three major forces affecting religious composition, migration (including asylum-seekers), differential fertility, and religious conversion. While the projections demonstrate some of the possible futures that Austria and its capital city could experience in the coming decades, and those are all quite dissimilar, they also show that religious diversity is bound to increase, and there are no reasons to think that any of the trends that have been in place already for several decades in the country will stop and that the country would move back to the situation of the early 1970s

Global Estimates of Mean Years of Schooling: A New Methodology

The indicator of mean years of schooling (MYS) has the advantage of expressing the distribution of educational attainment in a single number. It is often used for cross-country comparisons and in economic and environmental models as the unique indicator of educational attainment and human capital stock. The computation of MYS from a given educational attainment distribution is complex for two main reasons. First, the standard duration of different levels of schooling varies from country to country, and within countries each school level can have different lengths depending on the type of studies, for example, studies of general secondary as opposed to vocational secondary. Secondly, the calculation is biased by the presence of pupils/students who do not complete the full course at any level, which can amount to a substantial share in some countries. To overcome these difficulties, the methodology used and detailed in this paper computes MYS as the weighted mean of six educational levels based on ISCED 1997 classification - no formal education, incomplete primary, completed primary, completed lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary education . and the procedure takes into account country-specific educational systems as well as changes in these systems over time. To adjust for the proportion with incomplete educational levels, we developed regional sets of regression models to improve estimates of MYS for the incomplete primary category and a set of correction factors to adjust higher levels. The models are built using detailed data on duration of schooling by grades completed within primary level for 54 countries. We apply the method to estimate MYS for 171 countries in the Wittgenstein Centre (WIC) dataset on educational attainment, which served as the base for the population projections by levels of education until 2100. Detailed data are available online at www.wittgensteincentre.org/dataexplorer. In the paper we compare our method and results for 2010 to the widely used Barro & Lee data and to that of UNESCO, the main provider of global data on education statistics, and explain the differences

Populations for 171 Countries by Age, Sex, and Level of Education around 2010: Harmonized Estimates of the Baseline Data for the Wittgenstein Centre Projections

Data series on levels of educational attainment of the adult population consistent across time and space cannot be found as such, readily available, not in an aggregated form and not by age and sex. This is a pity because levels of educational attainment of the working age population are the main component of human capital that is used in many models, mostly related to economics, IT and health. Researchers at IIASA have developed a methodology to reconstruct and project levels of educational attainment (see Lutz et al. 2007) based on the information contained in the best source for the most recent year. An improved and increased version will become available in 2013. We are showing in this paper that it does not really make sense to keep the data as close as possible to those directly available datasets since a large majority of those suffer from severe flaws, hampering any trend and regression analysis on levels of educational attainment. We show how picking the right dataset for the starting year can be a real hassle and point towards the necessity to invest in harmonizing and mapping levels of education to facilitate academic research for the benefit of societies

Summary of Data, Assumptions and Methods for New Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (WIC) Population Projections by Age, Sex and Level of Education for 195 Countries to 2100

This paper describes the base-line data and summarizes the methodology that underlies the projections presented for 195 countries of the world by age, sex, and educational attainment, based on detailed data on education for 171 countries. These multi-dimensional cohort-component projections require a large amount of empirical information, ranging from base-year data on populations disaggregated by levels of educational attainment by age and sex, to data on educational differentials of fertility and mortality. The paper also summarizes the procedures by which the assumed trajectories for future fertility, mortality and migration were derived by combining structured expert judgments with statistical models. It also describes in detail the procedures by which assumptions on aggregate fertility, mortality and migration trends were translated into education-specific trajectories in order to then calculate the implications of alternative education scenarios

Validation of the Wittgenstein Centre Back-projections for Populations by Age, Sex, and Six Levels of Education from 2010 to 1970

There have been few attempts at creating data series on levels of educational attainment of the adult population consistent across time and space by age and sex. They would be needed to estimate the role played by education and human capital in economic, technological, environmental models as correctly as possible. In 2007, Lutz et al developed a methodology to reconstruct (and project) levels of educational attainment based on the information contained in the base-year source of choice for the most recent period (Lutz et al. 2007a). The methodology was applied again in the framework of a new round of population projections published in 2014 online (www.wittgensteincentre.org/dataexplorer) and in the Oxford University book "World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century" edited by Lutz, Butz and KC. There, the coverage increased to 171 countries and the number of education categories to six. The back-projection methodology was applied to the updated base-year sample in 2010 to arrive at the reconstruction of levels of educational attainment by age and sex for the period 1970-2005. The purpose of this paper is to compare the reconstructed datasets to other existing sources of historical data on education, including the former reconstruction from 2007, collection and other reconstruction exercises. The validation of the Wittgenstein Centre back-projection model outcomes with available empirical data source enables the evaluation of our back-projection method for the establishment of harmonized and consistent time series on the educational composition of 171 countries in the world. In comparison, the most other available datasets suffer from severe flaws, hampering any valid trend and regression analysis on levels of educational attainment. The back-projection methodology is explained in Section 2 and Section 3 describes the collection of empirical data for the validation of the WIC 2015 dataset and associated challenges. The validation methodology and results are developed in Section 4. Detailed documentation about the country-specific validation is available from the Appendices

Evolution in prostheses for sprinters with lower-limb amputation

Depuis une quinzaine d'années, les progrès techniques en appareillage ont été le facteur déterminant de la progression des performances des sportifs amputés de membre inférieur. Pour l'amputé tibial, la prothèse de course comprend un manchon gel et une emboîture solidarisés par un accrochage distal ou un vide virtuel. Par ses qualités dynamiques, le pied en fibre de carbone, garni de pointes, assure des performances remarquables. Pour l'amputé fémoral, équipé des mêmes pieds prothétiques, le genou est à biellettes et à contrôle des phases d'appui et pendulaire. Par rapport au coureur valide, le temps d'appui sur le membre appareillé est raccourci tandis que celui sur le membre sain est allongé. L'asymétrie du sprint de l'amputé tibial est discrète. C'est le travail des extenseurs de hanche qui est la principale compensation au déficit de propulsion dû à l'amputation. Chez l'amputé fémoral, l'absence de genou aggrave l'asymétrie. L'extension totale du genou prothétique, précoce en fin de phase oscillante et persistant pendant toute la phase d'appui, impose une compensation par une augmentation d'extension de la hanche controlatérale. Les transferts de charge de travail entre côté amputé et sain, par l'intermédiaire d'une hyperlordose lombaire, mettent en jeu le bassin, le tronc et les épaules. Les amputés sportifs font progresser la recherche en appareillage. Leurs orthoprothésistes acquièrent avec eux un savoir-faire dont bénéficient leurs patients non-sportifs.For about 15 years, technical advances in prosthetic treatment have been the main factor in the increased performance of athletes with lower-limb amputation. For trans-tibial amputation, the prosthesis for sprinting is composed of a gel liner and a socket joined by a locking or virtual vacuum liner. Because of these dynamic properties, the carbon prosthetic foot equipped with tacks ensures outstanding performance. For trans-femoral amputation, a hydraulic swing and a stance control unit are added to the same prosthesis. In comparison with the able-bodied runner, athletes with amputation have smaller loading times in the prosthetic limb and larger ones in the sound limb. The length of the energy-storing prosthetic foot is determined by the “up-on-the-toes” running gait. The sprinting gait with trans-tibial amputation is almost symmetrical. The hip extensor effort is the main compensation of propulsion reduction with lower-limb amputation. With trans-femoral amputation, the lack of knee increases the asymmetry. The total prosthetic knee extension (early in late-swing phase and lasting during total stance phase) compensates with extension of both hips, especially the opposite one. The amputation and sound limb load transfer with lumbar hyperlordosis concern the pelvis, trunk and shoulders. Because of athletes with amputation, research in prosthetic treatment has progressed. The development of orthotics and prostheses for such athletes has benefited non-athletes with amputation

Religious Affiliations in Austria at the Provincial Level: Estimates for Vorarlberg, 2001-2018

Religious affiliation is nowadays getting plenty of attention in Austria, in the public sphere with increased presence in the news and in the policy discourse. The aim of this study is to estimate the religious composition of the population of Vorarlberg in 2018, taking advantage of available data, such as census information and statistics on components of population change. The latest census that collected data on religion was implemented in 2001 and since then population counts have been relying on register data and did not collect data on the religious affiliation of the Austrian population. Therefore, to study changes in the religious composition of the population residing in Vorarlberg, it needs to be estimated using population projections following a methodology that was developed by Goujon et al. (2017) in a project to reconstruct (and project into the future) the population of Austria and Vienna in 2016. The reconstruction shows that Vorarlberg follows similar trends as those observed in Austria since 2001: 1) The share of Roman Catholics declines strongly, 2) there is a strong increase in the population with no religious affiliation, and 3) the share of Muslims has increased substantially which is the outcome of two main trends-fertility and migration. The study of the origin (country of birth) of Muslims residing in Vorarlberg in 2018 points at an increasing Austrian-born population, originating from parents or grandparents born predominantly in Turkey but also at a diversification as a result of the 2015 refugee crisis