Heinz Fassmann

Is the Austrian labour market ethnically segmented

The foreign population from former Yugoslavia and Turkey have not yetsucceeded in doing what the post-war migrants and cold war refugees havedone, namely, integrate into the Austrian middle class. Based on threemicro-census it can be shown that the thesis of an ethnically segmentedlabour market is valid.

System Changes in South Eastern Europe: Social, Political and Demographic Consequences

This volume comprises articles of scholars who attended the 1st Young Scholars Forum on Central and South Eastern Europe, organized by the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM) in December 2008. The conference was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research (Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung/BMWF), Raiffeisen Zentralbank/RZB, Land Niederösterreich, HannsSeidel-Stiftung, City of Vienna (Stadt Wien) and the Vienna Convention Bureau. For two reasons the contributions of these scholars are of particular interest. On the one hand, they all give account of aspects of social, political and demographic change in a particular region of Europe. On the other hand the authors represent the next generation of researchers working on South Eastern Europes past and present. Many articles assembled in this volume are part of their authors PhD thesis. Further progress within this generation of researchers will hopefully become apparent in future Young Scholars Forums. The IDM has launched this conference series in order to present recent research results, but also to facilitate personal networking across disciplinary as well as national boundaries. We hope that this might enable the next generation of researchers to effectively cooperate when dealing with related issues. This would give them a chance to explain social, political and historical phenomena both in a broader context and beyond the limited reach of scientific journals two tasks that many researchers belonging to the older generation have never accomplished. The issues covered in this volume range from historical nation building in the Balkans, urban planning in Tirana to present-day emigration and return. Migration gets a lot of attention not least because of the unprecedented levels of migration that the region of Central and South Eastern Europe has experienced since the fall of communism and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain. In most countries of South Eastern Europe remittances sent by successful migrants have become an important source of income. These financial flows have a positive effect for private households receiving this form of support as well as for Europes emerging economies as they help closing their current account deficits. In Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina or in Albania, for example, the official remittances cover more than a third of the negative trade balance. It is furthermore less known that the region meanwhile also has become the destination of international migration. Several articles are addressing the question how to deal with recent history of the

A New Stage of East-West Migration European and Austrian Experiences

Until the end of World War II and during the waves of flight and expulsion following immediately after it, East-West migrations were dominant in Europe. Thereafter Cold War and Iron Curtain curtailed European East-West migration without ever bringing it to a complete standstill. From 1948 to 1989, larger individual migration waves characterized European East-West migration. In part, these were directly connected to political events, which is particularly true for refugee migrations as a result of political crises in 1956, 1968 and 1980/81; or they were the result of political negotiations between the countries of origin and destination countries involved. This was especially true for ethnic German emigrants, Pontic Greeks and Jewish citizens of Central Eastern and Eastern Europe. In larger quantities, individually planned and primarily economically motivated East-West migrations only recurred from 1989/90 onward. This in turn led to most Western EU and EWR countries restricting entry into the country or access to the labor market for citizens of Central Eastern and Eastern Europe. With the EU accession of the most important countries of origin of traditional EastWest migration in 2004 and 2007, a common European migration space was created for the first time. In some Western EU countries, however, free access to the labor market does not yet exist for citizens of the new EU countries that acceded in 2004 and 2007. Especially Germany and Austria have thus far kept their labor markets closed for citizens of new EU countries. These restrictions will presumably be dropped stepwise beginning with 2008. The citizens of nearly all EU countries as well as of Norway and Switzerland will then be able to choose freely where to live and work, and they will do so under more or less the same laws as the respective national population. A new phase of East-West Migration has thus begun.

Demographische Tendenzen in Ostmitteleuropa und Österreich - Unterschiede und Auswirkungen

Die demographische Entwicklung ist jeweils eingebettet in den politischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Kontext einer Gesellschaft. Grundsätzliche politische und ökonomische Änderungen haben daher immer auch Auswirkungen auf die Lebenserwartung, die Zahl der Geburten und das Ausmaß an Zuund Abwanderungen, aber auch auf die Häufigkeit von Eheschließungen und Scheidungen. Das galt für die Phase der Industrialisierung Europas im 19. Jahrhundert, für Einschnitte wie die beiden Weltkriege und die Weltwirtschaftskrise, dies gilt nun auch für die Phase der Transformation ehemals kommunistischer Gesellschaften in Europa. Grundsätzlich geht es in diesem Beitrag um solche Regelmäßigkeiten und Zusammenhänge. Die politische und ökonomische Transformation der Staaten Ostmitteleuropas veränderte dort auch demographische Strukturen und Prozesse. In dem Maß, wie die politischen und ökonomischen Systeme durch die Transformation ähnlicher wurden, konvergierten auch die demographischen Verhältnisse. Relativ rasch stellte sich ein „westeuropäisches Muster demographischer Reproduktion ein, und die Unterschiede der Bevölkerungsentwicklung zwischen Österreich und seinen östlichen und nördlichen Nachbarn wurden kleiner. Das Resultat ist das selbe: Auch die Bevölkerungen von Ungarn, Polen, Tschechien, der Slowakei, Slowenien, Rumänien, Bulgarien und den baltischen Staaten altern, schrumpfen und würden langfristig Zuwanderung benötigen, um die Größe der erwerbsfähigen Bevölkerung zu stabilisieren. In Deutschland und Österreich oft geäußerte Ängste vor einer großen Ost-West-Wanderung sind daher aus demographischer Sicht unbegründet.