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Access to higher education during COVID-19: First-generation students in Austria
Full text linkIn Austria, educational upward mobility remains particularly low compared to other European countries, partly due to the prevalence of early tracking. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a severe economic crisis, and numerous measures were applied on the national labour market and in the higher education sector to counteract the negative consequences. In this paper we analyse how existing inequalities in access to higher education for first-generation students (i.e. students with parents without a tertiary degree) have developed in course of the pandemic, drawing on the unique pool of longitudinal register data collected for all Austrian students. We find that in the first year of the pandemic (2020/21), there is a clear peak in the number of students entering higher education in Austria. However, as this increase is mainly due to students with a tertiary family background, the share of first-generation students continued to decrease during this period. It shows that despite the disruptive effects of the pandemic and new labour market and higher education policies, the enduring downward trend in both the total number and the proportion of first-generation students has not been reversed
Digitale Patient*innensteuerung mittels Apps: Wo steht Österreich?
Full text linkDas Gesundheitssystem steht vor großen Herausforderungen: Digitale Lösungen könnten der Schlüssel sein, um Patient*innen schneller und gezielter zu versorgen. Welche konkreten Anwendungen sind im internationalen Kontext bereits etabliert und wo steht Österreich
A flexible distribution family for testing MCMC implementations
Full text linkWe propose a flexible, extensible family of distributions for testing Markov Chain Monte Carlo implementations. Distributions are created by nesting simple transformations, which allow various shapes, including multiple modes and fat tails. The resulting distributions can be sampled with high
precision using quasi-random sequences, and have closed form (log) density and gradient at each point, making it possible to test gradient-based samplers without automatic differentiation
Muddling through after a strong start: tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in Austrian nursing homes
No full textStudy or Work? The Impact of Social Background and Unemployment Rates on the Decision of Vocational High School Graduates in Austria
Full text linkVocational high schools (BHS) constitute a popular school type in Austria and are particularly appealing to students from lower socio‐economic backgrounds. These five‐year schools provide an alternative pathway to a general higher education entrance qualification, combining academic schooling with the “safety net” of school‐based vocational training. Although BHS represent an important route into higher education, with approximately half of graduates entering higher education within three years, the other half do not, with many opting to enter the labour market directly. Drawing on rational action theory, this study examines the relationship between students’ social backgrounds (measured by parental education level), labour market prospects following graduation from BHS, and higher education enrolment. We analyse the further educational and labour market pathways of the entire 2016/17 cohort of Austrian BHS graduates, using unique data that combines several high‐quality administrative registers. Descriptive analysis shows that transition rates to higher education vary considerably according to parental education. We employ logistic regression models to demonstrate that higher regional unemployment rates for the particular vocational qualification of BHS are associated with increased transition rates to higher education. In contrast with the assumptions of the “diversion thesis,” findings indicate that this effect does not vary according to the education of students’ parents. Consequently, BHS graduates with lower levels of parental education are equally likely to be deterred from pursuing higher education by the prospect of employment as those with higher parental education
Neue Öffi-Tarife in Wien: Ein zu hoher Preis
No full textNach langer Zeit steigt der Preis für eine Jahreskarte auf 467 Euro. Der Gewinn ist marginal, die sozialen Kosten sind immens
Exploring prosocial behaviors in times of a pandemic: Individuals’ lay perspective versus scientific measurements
Full text linkHumanitarian crises like the Covid‐19 pandemic pose significant challenges to society, prompting scientific debate on whether such situations elicit more prosocial or more selfish behavior. Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, current evidence indicates a continued display of various prosocial behaviors. This research aims to enhance the understanding of what constitutes prosocial behavior from both individuals’ lay and scientific perspectives. For this purpose, we analyzed lay perspectives via an open question in a representative survey ( N = 446) and qualitatively categorized the reported prosocial behaviors inductively with content analysis. The qualitative content analysis revealed three clusters of prosocial behaviors: promoting the welfare of others, health‐protective measures, and supporting society. Additionally, we conducted a systematic literature review to identify the scientific perspective view (i.e., focusing on the empirical measurements) on prosocial behaviors studied during the pandemic. Although behaviors promoting the welfare of others (e.g., donations) were the most commonly studied in the literature review, participants reported more health‐protective behavior, such as hand‐washing, which was not traditionally considered to be prosocial before the pandemic. The comparison between individuals’ lay and scientific perspectives highlighted some prosocial behaviors that warrant future investigation (e.g., supporting the economy, home office)
When happy people make society unhappy: Emotions affect tax compliance behavior
Full text linkEmotions affect judgments and decision making. Our paper presents a study to show that incidental background emotions (i.e., emotions not related to the actual decision) influence individuals’ tax compliance attitudes and behavior. A large-scale survey of 22,220 German taxpayers and a controlled laboratory experiment provide evidence that positive background emotions reduce willingness to comply compared to aversive (negative) background emotions. The participants in our survey show less favorable tax compliance attitudes on weekends, which are usually associated with more positive background emotions. These findings are supported by the results of a controlled laboratory experiment in which background emotions were induced by standardized pictures. Individuals choose to evade taxes more often after being exposed to positive emotions than after being exposed to aversive emotions