31 percent of Viennese are foreigners – politics –

The integration monitor is created by the magistrate every few years and aims to provide information on the extent to which immigration history affects opportunities in the education sector, in the labor market or in terms of affordable housing. The last edition to date was published in 2017.

The latest data now show that almost one in every second Viennese with primary residence (47.8 per cent) does not have Austrian citizenship, was not born in this country or has two foreign-born parents. Most of the new arrivals, with the exception of the refugee year 2015, have been coming from the EU for years. The number of non-Austrians in Vienna, that is, with a foreign passport, has risen from 27 to just under 31 percent compared to the latest report by the monitor.

In a substantive discussion, study author Philipp Hammer from MA 17 (Integration and Diversity) pointed out the extremely low naturalization rate in Vienna, which is only 0.8 percent: “That means that out of every 1,000 passport holders Alive foreigner in Vienna, only eight received Austrian citizenship. ” It is “one of the lowest naturalization rates in the EU”.

This leads to a “democratic deficit”. In the age segment between 27 and 44 years old, more than 40 percent cannot participate in federal or state elections due to the right to vote. Considered across the entire voting population, this proportion is at least 30.1 percent, and is almost double what it was just two decades ago.

Wiederkehr announced that he would “push” the issue of citizenship. Among other things, the procedures will be accelerated, although the City Council admitted that the person in charge MA 35 was highly questioned. One of the reasons for this is that the federal government is constantly changing the legal framework. Brexit is also causing a lot of work.

The department head, who is responsible for the education agenda in addition to integration, also highlighted the focus on education in the more than 200-page report. Wiederkehr doesn’t see the fact that more than half of the students have a first language other than German as a disadvantage: keyword multilingualism: “This is an opportunity if you use it.” But it needs a suitable accompaniment.

For this reason, language training, as set out in the red-rose coalition agreement, must be expanded and started in kindergarten. In addition, parents must be increasingly approached.

The level of education has developed positively. Among people who have immigrated since 2011, the share of those with a higher level of education (from Matura, note) is now 56 percent and thus only four percentage points below the population with no immigration history . In addition, the monitor shows that among young people aged 15 to 19 the educational standard has converged considerably. This is due to the fact that third-country nationals, in particular, have more frequently completed higher education in recent years, he said.

As for the employees of the city of Vienna, approximately one in four people have a migrant background. Here the hospital operator Gesundheitsverbund (formerly KAV, note) stands out with 34.7 percent, while in the rest of urban units “only” 17.6 percent has foreign origin, as shown by the diversity monitor prepared in parallel . Author Kurt Luger from MA 35 explained this with special initiatives in the course of which foreign nurses were recruited for hospitals in the past. In total, employees were born in 117 different countries, with three-quarters of the staff coming from just one country: Austria.