Social Change in Austria

This investigation continues an Austrian research tradition that allows to identify country-specific developments over the past 17 years and to draw comparisons with developments in other European countries. Even in the international research setting, there are only few empirical longitudinal studies on social change, covering key areas of social life and investigating behavior as well as norms and values. The study on social change will be based on a representative and comprehensive database (a social-scientific population survey, comparing data from similar research in Austria 1986, 1993 and 2003). Our research program will pursue the following objectives: - to identify change in the areas of work, family, leisure time, social and political participation and quality of life; - to analyze the impact of crucial factors, especially the structural discontinuities of labor and its impact on the areas mentioned above; - to show the interdependencies between such life domains in terms of testing hypotheses about interconnections, and to make new structures and processes visible; - to provide basic information for social policy and social welfare planning. Among others, important research questions are: Work and employment: the longitudinal observation allows to elaborate diverging hypotheses: e.g. whether change has brought about - intergender, intergroup, etc. - polarization or whether inequalities have by tendency been balanced. Family and marriage: while the strata, which introduce new patterns of behavior and values, proved to be young, well educated and urban, change may now also apply to other social groups. Or have these "new forms of living" chievely been established in particular segments of the population to which they remain limited today? Social and political participation: does this area show a continued trend of polarization made out some time earlier: disinterest and rejection of politics, low identification with political parties among certain social strata on the one hand, and receptiveness with respect to new political fields and different political forms on the other?

The project explores changes in social structures, human behavior, and attitudes and values over a period of two decades. The dataset consists of three large representative population surveys (1986, 1993 and 2004) with approx. 2000 Austrians participants each. The transition from the 20th to the 21st century has been accompanied by extensive change: In particular, we have established a continuously advanced level of education among the population and increases in women`s gainful employment. The prevalence of the computer has altered the working world dramatically; new information technologies have spread rapidly. The following processes of change have been identified under these structural conditions: The most crucial processes of change have taken place in private life; the numbers of unmarried couples, divorced couples and thus single parents have clearly grown, such that classical cycles of family life have lost importance. This process is reflected in changing attitudes and values: Traditional gender roles continue to lose acceptability; on the other hand, women`s concomitant plans to have children while being employed and sexual tolerance together have become characteristic. The occupational sphere is marked by increasing insecurity, worsened working conditions, and stress; the significance of this sphere has remained largely unchanged in spite of such decisive changes. Educational attainments (for achieving one`s social position) have advanced in importance in spite of educational expansion. Although today`s subjective quality of life is higher than two decades ago, we do identify polarization tendencies. The impact of income and other sociodemographic criteria upon the quality of life has again grown. However, the significance of self-realization, social and intimate relationships, as key factors for individuals` quality of life, has remained the same. An ever larger number of Austrians are dissociating themselves from traditional and religious beliefs. A critical attitude towards institutions has become widespread; authoritarianism and devoutness have decreased, and affective attachments to political parties are becoming more seldom. Negative assessments have come to the fore in balancing advantages and disadvantages of affiliation with the European Union: increasing crime rates, the transit problem, and deteriorating environmental and social standards. Interestingly, acceptance of the welfare state has remained unchanged since the 1980s.