How did the share of foreign nationals in Vienna evolve since 1971? What are the changes of the total population in relation to changes in the electorate since 2002? Are there any significant differences by age? This data-driven infographic by Ramon Bauer, Tina Frank and Michael Holzapfel provides answers to these questions – district by district.

Download the PDF poster!

See also:

• Interactive data map (coded by Clemens Schrammel)
• Blog post on Vienna’s electorate gap – district by district (by Ramon Bauer)
• Collection of Metropop contributions dealing with the topic of Vienna’s shrinking electorate

Although Vienna’s population is steadily increasing since the late 1980s, the growth of its electorate cannot keep up with population growth. Recent population gains are driven by an increasing influx of international migrants. The result is a growing democratic deficit. As long as foreign nationals are excluded from participating in citywide or national elections, Vienna’s electorate gap is getting wider and wider.

Check out the Metropop collection of related blog posts and data visualisations:

• Two faces of the 2015 Vienna elections (2015-10-12) – Maps by Tina Frank & Ramon Bauer.
• The citizenship dilemma (2015-10-09) – Blog post by Ramon Bauer & Markus Speringer.
• Vienna’s electoral gap – district by district (2015-09-20) – Blog post by Ramon Bauer.
• The Vienna electorate gap poster (2015-09-20) – Infographic by Ramon Bauer, Tina Frank and Michael Holzapfel.
• Interactive data map of Vienna’s electorate gap, district by district (2015-09-17) – Data visualisation by Ramon Bauer, Tina Frank, Michael Holzapfel and Clemens Schrammel.
• The shrinking electorate of Vienna (2013-09-02) – Blog post by Ramon Bauer.

Vienna Electorate analysis and visualisations featured in Wiener Zeitung:

• Wiener, aber keine Österreicher (2015-09-26) – Article by Matthias Winterer.

During the 1980s, Vienna’s population started to grow again after a period of almost constant decline that lasted for more than half a century. And while the city’s population increased by 14 per cent between 1982 and 2012, the population eligible for voting decreased by 1 per cent. The gap between de-facto electorate and people ineligible for voting is opening more and more since 1989 because the city’s growth is driven by an increasing influx of international migrants, especially since the late 1990s. Most of the new arrivals are not eligible for voting in Austria – only Austrian citizens aged 16 years and older are. Hence, an increasing share of the city’s population is excluded from voting at national or city level.

A growing city with a stagnating number of eligible voters is facing a shrinking electorate. While population numbers in Vienna increased from 1.52 million in 1982 to 1.73 million in 2012, the number of people eligible for voting stagnated around 1.1 million. Actually, the number even declined between 1982 and 2000 (by 60.010), before slightly increasing again after the turn of the millennium. In 2007, Vienna’s electorate gained almost thirty thousand new members after a national electoral law reform that lowered the electoral age from 18 to 16 years. However, the number of people who are excluded from participating in elections – because they are younger than 16 years and/or of foreign nationality – increased by more than 60 per cent between 1982 and 2012 (from 365,889 to 587,406).

At the coming Austrian national elections (on 29 September 2013) more than a third of the population of Vienna (587.406) will be ineligible for voting. Besides those younger than 16 years in 2012 (263.535), there are 323.871 people that are 16 years or older but do not hold an Austrian passport. In 2012, foreign nationals of voting age accounted for almost 19 per cent of Vienna’s population and for more than 22 per cent of the population 16 years or older, which constitutes the “potential electorate” (at least by age). Since 1982, over the course of only one generation, the gap between actual and potential electorate increased almost fourfold: from 5.5 per cent to 18.7 per cent of Vienna’s entire population.

Besides the growing imbalance between the population eligible for voting and the total population of Vienna, also considerable changes in the electorate’s age structure come to light (when digging through the online database of Statistics Austria). Compared to 2002, which was three rounds of national elections ago, the age structure of Vienna’s electorate became considerably older. Interestingly enough, this must not be entirely ascribed to the growing number of elderly Austrians in Vienna. The share of the electorate 60+ increased by 6 per cent since 2002 while other and younger age groups within the electorate experienced even stronger gains (below 30 years by 31 per cent, and 45 to 59 years by 11 per cent); only the group of 30 to 44 year old Austrian citizens decreased by both absolute numbers (minus 29.616) and proportion (minus 18 per cent). This distinct decline of young Austrian adults can be attributed to some extent to the selective out-migration of young Austrian families from the core city to Vienna’s suburbia just beyond the municipal boundary.

The age composition of foreign nationals of voting age in Vienna also experienced considerable changes during the last decade. Between 2002 and 2012, the share of the group of foreign citizens aged 60+ nearly doubled, albeit from a very low level (from 18.572 to 36.187). All other age groups of foreign nationals of voting age were also strongly increasing – between 32 per cent (45 to 59 years) and 62 per cent (below 30 years). Most interestingly, the age group 30 to 44 years, contrary to Austrian citizens at this age, was not only growing since 2002 (by 52 per cent) but also constitutes the strongest age group among foreign nationals in Vienna. Within the group of young adults, those with foreign nationality accounted for almost a third of Vienna`s population aged 30 to 44 years in 2012.

Vienna is a growing and also a prospering city. Because this growth is driven by international migration, the share of the electorate – i.e. Austrian citizens aged 16 years and older (or 18 years and older before 2007) – decreased since the 1980s and especially since the late 1990s. A shrinking electorate means that fewer people participate in the political process; be it at national or city level. Since 1982, the gap between Vienna’s actual electorate and the potential electorate (including foreign population of voting age) has widened almost fourfold. Nearly a third of the young adult population of Vienna between 30 and 44 years – an age group that is caught in the middle of career prospects, family formation and parenthood – will not be represented in the political process of the upcoming Austrian national elections. Beyond that, the election turnouts of the national election rounds since 2002 show that not much more than 70 per cent of Vienna’s electorate are active voters. Assuming that this will also be the case at the upcoming 2013 elections, the vote of considerably less than 50 per cent of Vienna’s population (about 800.000 or less) will represent the city’s society at the next Austrian National Assembly.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Gastarbeiter (guest workers) from Southern European countries (like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and the former Yugoslavia) as well as Turkey poured into Germany to fill the jobs that Germans didn’t want. After the German reunification, unemployment was on the rise and reached record highs by the late 1990s. The direction of labour migration seemed to be reversed, as thousands of young and skilled Germans started to look for jobs elsewhere in Europe (especially in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Austria and Switzerland). But Germany’s economy recuperated and unemployment is constantly decreasing since 2005, seemingly unimpressed by the global economic and labour market crises. In 2011, more people in Germany were in employment than ever before and unemployment rate settled in the single digits. While many European economies and labour markets are facing doom and gloom, Germany is booming – and is confronted with a shortage of workers.

Contrary to the labour market demands of the 1960s, as full employment lead to a shortage of unskilled workers in low-wage sectors, nowadays German companies are struggling to find enough skilled workers. Although low-wage employment accounts for more than 20 per cent – compared to only 13.5 per cent in Greece and 15.7 per cent in Spain (according to OECD figures) – this sector is quite saturated due to the Agenda 2010 labour market reforms that were initiated by the late Schröder government in 2003. The well-intended aim of the reforms to get the poorly-qualified and long-term unemployed back into the workforce, must be also associated to what Sarah Marsh and Holger Hansen calls the “The Dark Side of Germany’s Jobs Miracle”, as explained by in a recent Reuter’s article (8 Feb 2012):

Job growth in Germany has been especially strong for low wage and temporary agency employment because of deregulation and the promotion of flexible, low-income, state-subsidised so-called “mini-jobs”. (…) The number of full-time workers on low wages – sometimes defined as less than two thirds of middle income – rose by 13.5 percent to 4.3 million between 2005 and 2010, three times faster than other employment, according to the Labour Office.

Since more than a generation, Germany’s demography is caught in a low-fertility trap that hardly can be compensated by immigration, thus the population is not only ageing but is actually already shrinking. Due to this demographic momentum, the German workforce potential might decline by around 6.5 million until 2025 (as estimated by the Federal Employment Agency in 2011), if immigration does not increase significantly. However, during 2008 and 2009 – and for the first time in decades – more people left Germany than arrived there, but net migration turned positive again in 2010 (see chart below). Beyond quantity, it is also the qualitative aspect of immigration that counts in order to cope with the chronic demand of the German industry for skilled labour. While many young and especially highly educated left Germany behind during the last decade (and still do so), new and existing programs and initiatives that promote skilled immigration to Germany did not pay off yet.

Only recently, German politicians became quite pro-active in their attempt to kick-off skilled immigration. In February 2012, on a visit to Madrid, German Chancellor Angelika Merkel encouraged young and skilled Spaniards to escape unemployment by getting a job in Germany – and, by doing so, prompted a rush on German courses in many Spanish cities. Following Merkel’s strong hint, Germany’s Employment Agency organized first job fairs in countries like Portugal, hunting skilled labour for short-staffed companies back home. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s minister for employment, wrapped up these recent efforts into a political win-win situation: “Germany’s economy plays its part in combating the unemployment crisis in hard-hit Southern European countries”.

One has to agree with the German ladies when looking at the evidence of diverging trends in unemployment across Europe. While unemployment is persistently decreasing in Germany, it is on the rise in many other countries. In fact, unemployment rates even more than doubled in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal since Lehman Brothers closed their doors in 2008, reaching more than 20 per cent in Spain and Greece and around 15 per cent in Portugal (by Feb 2012). Even more dramatically, the youth unemployment rate (for people aged 16 to 24 years) also doubled in many countries and broke through the 50 per cent barrier by early 2012, while youth unemployment in Germany decreased below ten per cent during the same period. Moreover, the unemployment rate for higher (tertiary) educated rests below three per cent in Germany, while the rate for lower educated (with only compulsory education or less) is six times higher. Educational differences in unemployment are significantly smaller in Spain and Portugal (times 2.5) and nearly non-existent in Greece.

Taking these disparities into account it appears quite rational, if those young and often well-educated, but unemployed people in economically hard-hit countries of Southern (and also Eastern) Europe would take advantage of the common European labour-market, which is open to all citizens of (most) EU Member States. Institutions like EURES – the European Job Mobility Portal and other initiatives like joint job fairs will help to channel regional and local labour demands and supplies, and – let’s think “win-win – enable young Europeans to escape local unemployment while supplying the urgently needed labour to the drivers of the European economy like the buzzing German Wirtschaftsmotor.

Like Germany, also other intact and prospering economies and labour markets are first and foremost looking for skilled labour. New labour migration flows from Southern Europe will differ strongly from the generation of Gastarbeiter in the 1960s and 1970s. Gastarbeiter 2.0, although originating from the same geographical regions, will be much more educated than previous waves of labour migrants. As a consequence, this new generation of immigrants might, on the one side, integrate much more smoothly into the host societies, when compared to their predecessors. On the other side, this human capital will be badly missed in Spain, Portugal or Greece, when these economies will (try to) regain their stability one day.

It remains to be seen, if such a migration dynamic will turn out to be a brain drain in the longer term, or rather a win-win situation as outlined by Frau von der Leyen; or even a win-win-win situation, if the generation Gastarbeiter 2.0 will circulate back to their places of origin, whenever their skills are needed back home. Since unemployment is still rising almost everywhere in Southern Europe for the fourth year in a row, more and more young and skilled people will depart Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to more promising destinations like Germany. For those concerned, the European labour market – granting EU nationals the right to full mobility between the Member States –  is a great opportunity to escape unemployment and the lack of prospects at home, by looking for a better bid somewhere else in Europe. However, a new wave of emigration will not resolve the crisis in those EU countries affected, but it could at least improve the individual prospects of many EU citizens.

Additional links, references and data sources:

• DESTATIS (German Federal Statistical Office): Employment Figures (in german only)
• DESTATIS (German Federal Statistical Office): Population (in german only)
• EUROSTAT: Unemployment Statistics
• OECD Employment Database