Women in Austria

Yesterday was international women's day - Internationaler Frauentag - and Statistik Austria published a press release about data that shows some interesting differences between men and women particularly in respect of changes in the educational achievement of women over the last few decades.

Bei den Maturaabschlüssen haben die 18- bis 19-jährigen Frauen beispielsweise ihre männlichen Schulkollegen bereits Mitte der 1980er Jahre überholt, 2007/08 wurden 57% der Maturaabschlüsse von Frauen abgelegt. An den Universitäten zeigt sich ein ähnliches Bild: 2007/2008 wurden 56% der Studienabschlüsse von Frauen erworben. Bei den Doktoraten sind Männer allerdings noch in der Überzahl - rund 58% der Doktoratsabschlüsse entfielen auf Männer.

Die Matura is the Austrian and Swiss equivalent of das Abitur. It has much the same meaning as the English "matriculation" - qualifying for university entrance. I wonder what lies behind the lower proportion gaining doctorates. Is there some form of discrimination operating? There are certainly some gender specific differentiation when it comes to professions and also how far up the career ladder women advance. The article also has something to say about "gender pay gap".

There is some useful material here if you want to practise vocabulary about increase and decrease and comparison. Or perhaps you might want to express some opinions about whether you feel women are still disadvantaged in society or about what might be done to reduce the risk of poverty for Alleinerziehende Frauen

Starvation Wages

A report on tagesschau.de speaks of subcontractors working for the railways paying starvation wages Hungerlöhne bei Bahn-Subunternhemen? ZDFheute.de is carrying reports that suggest increase social polarisation Soziale Polarisierung nimmt zu. One in seven Germans is threaten by poverty and the ratio would be almost one in four if it were not for welfare benefits (Sozialleistungen).

I was impressed by the quality of the comments posted on the Hungerlöhne article - well worth a look. I also want to mention CAP's campaign for a living wage in Britain. This also has links to theological justifications for similar campaigns in the US. I've tried to find similar on German sites but not been very successful so far. But I did stumble across http://www.suedwind-institut.de/ According to the English part of their site "The work of SÜDWIND is based on the conviction that there is a connection between the prosperity of industrial nations and the poverty that is prevalent across broad sections of society in developing countries." Their work includes poverty reduction, ethical investment and world trade. I think I might be exploring some of this over the next few months.

The way in which we deal with poverty depends very much on the attitudes that people take to the causes of poverty. Here are some reasons given. Which is your view?

Es gibt Menschen in Not, weil ...

1. Es ist ein unvermeidliche Teil des modernen Lebens
2. Ungerechtigkeit in unserer Gesellschaft
3. Faulheit oder Mangel an Willenskraft
4. Sie sind von Pech verfolgt