Consequences of International Migration on the Size and Composition of Religious Groups in Austria

Michaela Potančoková,Sandra Jurasszovich,Anne Goujon

doi:10.1007/s12134-018-0575-z

Abstract

Scientific knowledge on a population’s religious composition is essential to understand the challenges faced by societies today. It arises in opposition to speculations about the actual size of religious groups that have been increasingly present in the public discourse in Europe for many years. This is particularly the case in Austria where the flows of refugees and migrants coming from the Middle East and Afghanistan have intensified since 2011 and culminated in 2015. These sparked a debate on the actual size of the Muslim population in Austria. This study fills the gap by presenting estimates of the religious composition for 2016 and projections until 2046 based on several scenarios related to the three major forces affecting the religious composition: migration (including asylum seekers), differential fertility and secularisation. The projections demonstrate that religious diversity is bound to increase, mostly through immigration and fertility. We further focus on the role and implications of international migration on the age and sex composition within the six religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, other religions and unaffiliated. We find that the volume and composition of international migrants can maintain youthful age compositions in minority religions—Muslims and Orthodox. Sustained immigration leads to slower ageing but does not stop or reverse the process. The disparity between older majority and younger minority religious groups will further increase the cultural generation gap.

Highlights

Religious identity has been rather a feature of social structure and cultural construct than an individual choice (Hammond 1992)
Diversity Driven by Immigration: Changing Religious Landscape in Austria
While the projections demonstrate some of the possible situations that Austria could experience in the future, and those are all quite dissimilar, they show that religious diversity is bound to increase while religious homogeneity will be diminishing

Summary

Introduction

Religious identity has been rather a feature of social structure and cultural construct than an individual choice (Hammond 1992). Since the Reformation, Austria has been a Roman Catholic country, with small pockets of Protestant and Jewish populations This started to change in the first half of the twentieth century with the rise of secularisation as well as with forced migration movements during and after WWII. Until the first oil crisis in 1973, Austria among other western European countries recruited cheap and unskilled workers to fill labour shortages in the context of booming economies (Messina 2007). Since the mid-twentieth century, international migration has altered, through several distinct flows, the religious landscape of countries and cities across Europe (see Knippenberg 2010 for the Netherlands; Goujon et al 2007 for Austria; Stonawski et al 2015 for Spain)

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Conclusion