Karin Heitzmann

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien | WU · Department of Socioeconomics & Research Institute "Economics of Inequality"

In many countries, large families with three or more children have high income poverty rates. In this article, we aim to understand why this is the case by examining the relevance of family structure, socio‐economic characteristics, and welfare state transfers targeted at this family form. For our analyses, we use cross‐sectional data from three wa...

In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, dass die traditionellen Armutsmaße nicht geeignet sind, ein adäquates Bild der sozialen Probleme zu zeichnen, die durch die jüngsten Krisen, vor allem durch die Inflation, verstärkt wurden. Vielmehr müsste ein breiteres Indikatorsystemzur Armutsmessung verwendet werden. Da dieses in der Praxis nur auf Stichprobenbasis...

This contribution analyses the current social situation in Austria, including the pressing social challenges, according to the dimensions “social inequality and social divisions”, “social risks and social uncertainty” and “social needs and social problems”. We then provide an overview of the architecture of the Austrian welfare state, which is tra...

Against the background of multiple crises, welfare states face increasing challenges in maintaining living standards and combatting poverty. This contribution reviews the evidence with respect to poverty (risk) and homelessness in Austria, while assessing welfare state change in the past decade. It supplements traditional income-based measures with...

Jüngst veröffentlichte die OECD einen Bericht zur unter Druck geratenen Mittelschicht und legte Vorschläge für wirtschafts- und sozialpolitische Interventionen dar. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird durch eine Maßnahmenanalyse herausgearbeitet, in welchen Bereichen Österreich gut und weniger gut abschneidet. Behandelt werden u. a. die Erhöhung von Einko...

Über Armut zu forschen, und damit Armut zu beschreiben und zu messen, ist ein schwieriges Unterfangen, auch weil es sich bei »Armut« um ein Konzept handelt, das – z. B. in der Alltagssprache – unterschiedliche Bedeutungen aufweisen kann (vgl. dazu auch Jacobs 1995).

Dieser Bericht beschreibt und analysiert bezugnehmend auf die COVID-19 Krise die soziale Lage in Österreich. Teil 1 dieses Bandes beschreibt die gesamtwirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen sowie die Entwicklung von Einkommen und Armut. Dabei wird insbesondere auf makroökonomische Entwicklungen sowie fiskalische Effekte eingegangen. Des Weiteren werden di...

The social investment perspective has become a prominent topic in both social policy discussions and theoretical considerations regarding welfare state change. Empirical evidence on how this perspective has affected welfare state provision is much scarcer—and sometimes contradictory. This article aims to assess whether welfare state benefits increa...

Entwickelte Wohlfahrtsstaaten stehen aktuell vor schwierigen demografischen, ökonomischen und finanziellen Herausforderungen. Ein vielfach vorgeschlagener Weg, um mit diesen Herausforderungen umzugehen, ist die Etablierung von Sozialinvestitionsstaaten. Wiewohl diese Option zur Reformierung traditioneller Wohlfahrtsstaaten generell positiv rezipier...

Across Europe, the economic and fiscal crisis has deeply shaken the economy and created enormous challenges lasting up until today. Austria is no exception, but that did not lead to fundamental changes in social policies. The development of the Austrian welfare system in the past two decades is characterised by continuity rather than paradigmatic c...

So far, research on the causes of over-indebtedness in Europe has predominantly focused on the characteristics of individuals or households. This article investigates to what extent country-level factors are associated with a European household’s risk of being over-indebted. We examine variables that reflect policies aimed at combating over-indebte...

This paper aims to shed light on the relative importance of the discourse on social investment and social innovation in Austrian social policy by examining their role in academic and civil society discussions and presenting some evidence of current empirical developments. It is shown that the idea of social innovation is increasingly being promoted...

This article investigates in how far critical life events (e.g. unemployment) as well as financial shocks triggered by such events affect the probability of private households to enter over-indebtedness (shock hypothesis). Second, we examine if the effect of such events is mitigated by coping measures set by the household after the critical event a...

In Austria, as well as in many other countries world-wide, nonprofit organizations returned to the center of political, economic and academic debates within the last decade. In many instances, this enhanced interest was (and is) rooted in an attempt to search for ways out of economic and political crises, most notably the employment crisis and the...

2010 was the »European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion«. This article describes, first, the European policies against poverty and social exclusion, their strengths and weaknesses. Second, the relevance of the European strategy for Austria, concerning the reporting on poverty as well as the policies combating poverty and social exclu...

Given that the quality and solidity of civil society depend on the amount of civic engagement, the question why some groups engage while others do not becomes a major issue for research. This paper aims to identify factors that might explain whether or not citizens participate in civil society. In terms of theory, we refer to both Bourdieu's concep...

Die europäischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten stehen vor gro\en sozialen, ökonomischen und politischen Herausforderungen. österreich stellt dabei keine Ausnahme dar. Im Hinblick auf das Ausgabenvolumen ist der österreichische Wohlfahrtsstaat vergleichsweise gro\zügig dimensioniert. österreich rangiert bei den Sozialausgaben als Anteil am Bruttoinlandsprodukt...

Eine der Schwierigkeiten bei der wissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung mit dem Themenbereich "Armut" ist der normative Gehalt dieses Konzepts. Das hat unter anderem damit zu tun, dass der Begriff nicht nur in wissenschaftlichen Analysen, sondern auch in der Alltagssprache verwendet und dabei zum Teil deutlich unterschiedlich definiert wird. Vor dem Hint...

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an important role in Austrian society and in the economy. Nonetheless, nonprofit sector research in this country — and in continental Europe in general — is a relatively new academic discipline (Badelt, 2002a).1 This is contrary to many Anglo-American countries, where — based on the work of de Tocqueville (Tocque...

Organisationen des Nonprofit Sektors weisen eine lange Tradition in der Erbringung einer Vielzahl von Leistungen auf. Dies gilt besonders für den Sozialbereich, in dem karitative Verbände und Kirchen lange Zeit die primäre Zuständigkeit zur institutionellen Lösung sozialer Probleme hatten. So hat beispielsweise in der Armenfürsorge das Engagement v...

Social risk management (SRM) is a new means of looking at poverty, risk, and risk management that was recently presented in the World Bank's Social Protection Strategy Paper. The SRM perspective addresses how vulnerable households can be helped to better manage risks and become less susceptible to potentially damaging welfare losses. This paper pro...

Following Esping-Andersen (1990 and 1996), Austria together with Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy is labelled as a continental, "Bismarckian", conservative or Christian democratic welfare state. In the last three decades all continental welfare states had to be reformed, restructured, retrenched or renegotiated. Austria was the l...

The aim of this paper is to provide some guidance on how to carry out a social protection (SP) expenditure, performance and finance review - given the absence of social protection in public expenditure review (PER) work to date. Such a review will enable countries (i) to better use their SP budgets as a proactive instrument in addressing vulnerabil...