Austrian Workers Research Articles

Explainable Artificial Intelligence to Support Work Safety in Forestry: Insights from Two Large Datasets, Open Challenges, and Future Work

Forestry work, which is considered one of the most demanding and dangerous professions in the world, is claiming more and more lives. In a country as small as Austria, more than 50 forestry workers are killed in accidents every year, and the number is increasing rapidly. This serves as a catalyst for us to implement more stringent measures for workplace safety in order to achieve the sustainability objective of SDG 3, which focuses on health and well-being. This study contributes to the analysis of occupational accidents and focuses on two large real-world datasets from both the Austrian Federal Forests (ÖBf) and the Austrian Workers’ Compensation Board (AUVA). Decision trees, random forests, and fully connected neural networks are used for the analysis. By exploring different interpretation methods, this study sheds light on the decision-making processes ranging from basic association to causal inference and emphasizes the importance of causal inference in providing actionable insights for accident prevention. This paper contributes to the topic of explainable AI, specifically in its application to occupational safety in forestry. As a result, it introduces novel aspects to decision support systems in this application domain.

Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation

Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and childcare, using administrative data covering Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then map these causal estimates into a decomposition framework to compute counterfactual gender inequality series. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and childcare have had virtually no impact on gender convergence. (JEL D63, J13, J16, J31, J32)

Job search with commuting and unemployment insurance: A look at workers’ strategies in time

Unemployed workers search for jobs that ideally offer both high wages and short commutes. But would they accept jobs with lower wages or longer commutes or both as the unemployment spell lengthens? Using a unique panel of Austrian workers, we find that job seekers do indeed accept jobs with significantly lower wages. However, the majority group of job seekers who used to commute to jobs located outside their municipality of residence tend to increasingly accept jobs in their home municipality, and do not necessarily broaden geographically their search. Based on quasi-experimental variations in the duration of unemployment benefits, we find that this evolution of commuting patterns is not linked to the loss of benefits. We explain these findings through the lens of a job search model where flexible parameters such as search costs are allowed to vary across space and time. We estimate that search costs are substantial and increase differently over time for local and non-local jobs, accounting for the patterns found in the data. A counterfactual policy exercise suggests that unemployment insurance does not hinder geographical mobility. Competing mechanisms are discussed and their role is left to future research.

Social workers’ experience working with refugees during Covid-19: Case of Austria

Global pandemic, Covid-19, started at the end of 2019 and until today we are facing the consequences of it on a daily basis. The Covid-19 virus has made the situation more difficult for both social workers and refugees and the ignorance has been more visible both theoretically and practically. On the other hand, professional activities of social workers were significantly influenced during Covid – 19. It made their job harder and more challenging than before. Research goal – To disclose Austrian social workers ‘experience working with refugees during Covid – 19. Research strategy - qualitative research. The study was conducted in November - December of 2021 among social workers in Austria. Data collection method - semi-structured interview (8 social workers). Data analysis method - content analysis method. Main findings - the restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the isolation and vulnerability of refugees and created confusion. During the Covid -19 pandemic, social workers working with refugees faced the following challenges - significant alterations in routine of social workers and struggling to preserve and keep clients.

Effects of unemployment insurance duration on mental and physical health

Using administrative data for Upper Austrian workers from 2003–2013, we show that a 9-week extension in unemployment insurance (UI) duration increases nonemployment length by 4 days, on average, and impacts worker physical and mental health. These effects vary by gender. Specifically, we find that female workers eligible for an additional 9 weeks of UI benefits reduce opioid and antidepressant prescriptions by 0.5 percentage points (50%) and 0.9 percentage points (11%), respectively. Moreover, we find some evidence of beneficial within-household spillovers for young children. For male workers, we find little evidence of health effects of extending UI benefit duration. We posit that these differential effects are driven by a combination of income and occupational changes that also vary by gender.

The Unequal Consequences of Job Loss across Countries

We document the consequences of losing a job across countries using a harmonized research design applied to seven matched employer-employee datasets. Workers in Denmark and Sweden experience the lowest earnings declines following job displacement, while workers in Italy, Spain, and Portugal experience losses three times as high. French and Austrian workers face earnings losses somewhere in between. Key to these differences is that southern European workers are less likely to find employment following displacement. Loss of employer-specific wage premiums explains a substantial portion of wage losses in all countries. (JEL J31, J63, J64)

Influences of COVID-19 Work-Related Fears and Anhedonia on Resilience of Workers in the Health Sector during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers worked under stressful conditions, challenging their individual resilience. Therefore, we explored the bidirectional influence of resilience and the factors of COVID-19 work-related fears and anhedonia in Austrian healthcare workers. Methods: Healthcare workers in Austria completed an online survey at two points in time. The first measurement started in winter 2020/2021 (t1), and a second measurement began approximately 1.5 years later (t2). One hundred and eight six individuals completed both surveys and were investigated in a longitudinal design. We applied the Resilience Scale, the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale, and a self-created questionnaire assessing COVID-19 work-related fears. We used a repeated measures analysis of variance and applied Pearson-Correlations as well as univariate and multivariate analyses of covariance. Results: Resilience was significantly correlated with COVID-19 work-related fears and anhedonia at both points in time in all participants. We found no significant differences for frontline vs. non-frontline workers at t1 and t2. Resilience decreased significantly over time. Limitations: Most subjects were examined cross-sectionally. Frontline workers were underrepresented in our sample. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the importance of resilience in healthcare providers. Steps must be taken to maintain and promote resilience in healthcare workers. We suggest that the improvement of resilience, dealing with fears and uncertainty, and the ability to experience joy might have a beneficial influence on the respective other categories as well.

Appreciation at work and the effect on employees' presenteeism.

Presenteeism, which means attending work while feeling unhealthy or ill, is a serious risk behavior that reduces the employees' productivity and performance. Employees who are treated appreciatively by their work environment show less presenteeism. Investigating the mechanisms behind the relationship between appreciation and presenteeism can help to understand how presenteeism can be reduced even more in the workplace. This study aimed to investigate the impact of two forms of appreciation (supervisor appreciation and general appreciation from the work environment), on presenteeism and includes the moderating effects of resources and stress. This will help to answer the questions a) which form of appreciation is more beneficial for employees and b) whether appreciation counteracts presenteeism by building up resources. 1077 Austrian workers were invited to fill-in an online survey about work-related issues. The data was analyzed with structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that both forms of appreciation increase the resources of the employees. Through this increase of resources employees experience less stress, which consequently lowers presenteeism. Additionally, general appreciation is more beneficial than supervisor appreciation. The findings indicate that appreciative behavior builds resources at the workplace which are essential for showing less presenteeism at work.

Remote workers' free associations with working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria: The interaction between children and gender.

Empirical evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic shows that women carried the major burden of additional housework in families. In a mixed-methods study, we investigate female and male remote workers’ experiences of working from home (WFH) during the pandemic. We used the free association technique to uncover remote workers’ representations about WFH (i.e., workers’ reflection of subjective experiences). Based on a sample of 283 Austrian remote workers cohabitating with their intimate partners our findings revealed that in line with traditional social roles, men and women in parent roles are likely to experience WFH differently: Mothers’ representations about WFH emphasize perceived incompatibility between the work and non-work sphere whereas fathers’ representations highlight work-family facilitation of WFH. However, gender differences were also prevalent for women and men without children: Women seem to particularly benefit from more concentration at home, whereas men consider WFH as more efficient, practical and leading to less work. Thus, our findings imply that gender affected perceptions of WFH during the pandemic independently from children, but children seemed to increase the existing burden, in particular for women. To conclude, WFH can generally be seen as an enabler to reduce work-life/family conflict for both women and men, but bears different challenges based on the contextual (family) situation.

Participation in the administration of elections and perceptions of electoral integrity

In recent years, election administration has become a subject of intensified debates, raising questions of how to organize elections to ensure electoral integrity. One question concerns who should serve as members of polling station boards, administer election day proceedings, and participate in the vote count. Different models co-exist in modern democracies, with some countries – among them Austria – actively involving the political parties in the election administration. Against this background, this paper examines perceptions of electoral integrity among Austrian poll workers and citizens using data from an original survey of poll workers and survey data of the voting population. The results show that poll workers have greater confidence in the election administration than regular voters but are equally or more skeptical regarding other aspects of electoral integrity. Also, their partisan background shapes perceptions of electoral integrity. To conclude, we discuss the benefits and limitations of the ‘party model’ for poll worker recruitment.

Health-Promoting Leadership and Leaders’ Listening Skills Have an Impact on the Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention

The topic of health-promoting leadership has often been investigated on its impact on health outcomes. However, it is still unclear if healthpromoting leadership has an impact on other well-being parameters at work besides health. Another leadership behavior, the leaders’ listening skills, can benefit well-being parameters at the workplace, such as job satisfaction, which in turn lowers turnover intention. In the present study, we investigate the relationship between health-promoting leadership, the leaders’ listening skills, job satisfaction, and turnover intention to get a clearer picture about the effects of different leadership behaviors on the employees’ well-being. The results of an online-study with 354 Austrian and Slovenian workers showed that both types of leadership behaviors had a direct effect on the employees’ job satisfaction and an indirect effect on turnover intention through job satisfaction. Listening was found to have a stronger direct impact on job satisfaction. The findings indicate that both leadership behaviors are able to support well-being at the workplace.

Achieving Employability as We Age: The Role of Age and Achievement Goal Orientations on Learning and Employability

The aging workforce challenges companies to keep their aging employees employable in the workforce. This paper gives an indication as to which employees are more likely to be interested in further learning and employability. Specifically, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of chronological age and achievement goal orientations for informal and formal learning and employability. Data of 167 Austrian knowledge workers were gathered via electronic questionnaires to investigate the relationships between age, achievement goal orientations, learning activities, and employability using structural equation modeling. It was found that informal learning has a significant positive relation with several dimensions of employability. Furthermore, mastery-approach goal orientation also shows a significant positive relation with informal learning and employability. In addition, age had no significant relation with the achievement goal orientations. The paper stresses the need to consider characteristics other than chronological age, such as goal orientations, when considering employees’ learning behavior and employability.

Structural and Molecular Characteristics of Axons in the Long Head of the Biceps Tendon

ObjectivesAlthough the long head of the biceps tendon (LHBT) is a major source of shoulder pain, the innervation is not sufficiently documented. Thus, the present study aimed to characterize structural and molecular features of nervous elements in the LHBT.MethodsThe proximal part of eleven LHBTs was harvested intraoperatively. There were 8 female and 3 male specimens. Age ranged from 66 to 86 years. For structural analyses, nervous elements were viewed in the transmission electron microscope. For molecular characterization, we used a series of neuronal markers: This included general neuronal markers [antibodies against neurofilament and protein gene product 9.5 (PGP9.5)] as well as specific neuronal markers[antibodies against myelin basic protein (MBP), calcitonin gene related product (CGRP), substance P (SP), tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), and growth associated protein 43 (GAP43)]. Anti‐neurofilament and anti PGP9.5 visualized the overall innervation. Anti‐MBP visualized myelination, anti‐CGRP and anti‐SP nociceptive fibers, anti‐TH sympathetic nerve fibers, and anti‐GAP43 nerve fibers during development and regeneration. Immunolabelled sections were analyzed in the confocal laser scanning microscope.All procedures performed in this study were approved by the local medical ethics committee (Austrian workers compensation boards’ research ethics committee and institutional review board of the Medical University of Vienna, No. 06/2017) and in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all persons included in this study.ResultsWe show that the LHBT contains unmyelinated as well as myelinated nerve fibers which group in nerve fascicles and follow blood vessels. Many myelinated and unmyelinated axons exhibit molecular features of nociceptive nerve fibers. Another subpopulation of unmyelinated axons exhibits molecular characteristics of sympathetic nerve fibers. Unmyelinated sympathetic fibers and unmyelinated nociceptive fibers express proteins that are found during development and regeneration.ConclusionPresent findings show that the LHBT of aged persons is richly innervated. The occurrence of growth protein GAP43 in nociceptive nerve fibers supports the hypothesis that in‐growth of nociceptive fibers is the source of chronic tendon pain.

Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation

Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and child care, using administrative data covering the labor market and birth histories of Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then map these causal estimates into a decomposition framework building on Kleven, Landais and Sogaard (2019) to compute counterfactual gender inequality series. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and child care subsidies have had virtually no impact on gender convergence. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC METHODS FOR ESTABLISHING THE BASE VALUE OF THE LEXEMЕ <i>“ARBEIT” (WORK)</i> IN AUSTRIAN LINGUISTIC CULTURE

The article is devoted to the establishment of the socio-cultural content of the basic value “Arbeit”/ work in the Austrian linguistic culture. As the main method of establishing the socio-cultural content of the basic value, a free associative experiment was used. It was conducted with linguistic culture carriers from May to July in 2018 in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Villach, Linz, Salzburg. It was found that the psychologically relevant core of the basic value “Arbeit” / work confirms the socio-cultural content of the Austrian basic value. Austrian respondents’ nuclear reactions include: Freude / joy (9), Anerkennung / recognition (6), Stress / large amount of work (6), Erfolg / success (5), Motivation / motivation (4), Geld / money (3), Spaß / pleasure (3). The reactions that are part of the core of the lexemе’s value in the Austrian linguistic culture are rather positive. Work in general gives the Austrian respondents joy and pleasure. However, they mention a great amount of work. The associates unambiguously update the components of remuneration for work and the receipt of mental benefits. In the nuclear and individual responses of respondents, obtained on the basis of an associative experiment, social and cultural features of work in Austrian society are manifested: for the Austrians colleagues do play an important role, not the work itself, many Austrians want to be self-employed and work for themselves, female labor is lower paid in Austria than male work, Austrian workers are highly qualified, and students have a qualified education that they strive to improve, Austrians complain about Stress / a lot of work. The fact that the socio-cultural content is manifested in the reactions of the Austrians may indicate the correct establishment and relevance of the socio-cultural content of the basic value.

A pooled RP/SP mode, route and destination choice model to investigate mode and user-type effects in the value of travel time savings

Being of great importance for transportation policy appraisals, we investigate mode and user-type effects in the value of travel time savings (VTTS) using a pooled RP/SP Mixed Logit modeling approach for mode, route and destination choice data. For a representative sample of Austrian workers, our analysis reveals population-weighted median VTTS estimates for car (12.3 Euro/h), public transportation (PT; 8.1 Euro/h), bike (11.7 Euro/h) and walk (10.2 Euro/h).Considering only those respondents who have used car and PT in the observation period (and thus are familiar with both modes), we find that four user characteristics are able to decompose this substantial difference in median VTTS between car and PT (i.e. the total mode effect) of about 4.9 Euro/h: Posterior means of individual and mode-specific VTTS distributions reveal a reduced mode effect for high income (4.6 Euro/h), female (4.5 Euro/h), low educated (4.3 Euro/h) and urban (3.0 Euro/h) user groups.Our results indicate that in the case of Austrian workers, characteristics of the mode are more important than characteristics of the users, and that the travel time spent in PT is valued less than in a car for all investigated user groups.

Psychometric Properties of the German Version of the Workplace Incivility Scale and the Instigated Workplace Incivility Scale

Abstract. The quality of workplace social environments has been widely recognized as having an important role in employees’ experience of their workplace, which is confirmed by recent research. The greater frequency of incivility, in contrast to the more intense forms of negative workplace interactions, expands opportunities for understanding the social dynamics of workplaces. Important aspects of this research are potential cultural variations in workplace social behavior. Valid translations of measures for the core constructs are part of the essential infrastructure to support such research endeavors. To assess uncivil behavior at the workplace, we prepared a German translation of the Workplace Incivility Scale and the Instigated Workplace Incivility Scale. Our analysis of the responses from 2,168 Austrian workers indicated that the translation of both scales into German was successful, and that the concept of incivility can indeed be transferred to the German-speaking population. The factor solution was comparable to the original version of the scales. Criterion validity coefficients lay in a similar range as the coefficients found in previous studies with Canadian samples. The availability of the scales should stimulate research on incivility among the German-speaking population and can help in organization-diagnostic processes.

Enhancing Resources at the Workplace with Health-Promoting Leadership.

Leaders engaging in health-promoting leadership can influence their employees’ health directly by showing health awareness or indirectly by changing working conditions. With health-promoting leadership, leaders are able to support a healthy working environment by providing resource-oriented working conditions for their employees to support their health. Changing working conditions in a health-supportive way can prevent possible negative consequences from critical working conditions (e.g., burnout risk). The present study examined the relationship between health-promoting leadership and the employees’ resources, stress and burnout. To analyze our proposed model, structural equation modelling was conducted in two samples. The resulting model from the first sample of 228 Austrian workers was cross-validated and could be verified with the second sample (N = 263 Austrian workers). The results supported a model in which health-promoting leadership has a strong direct effect on the employees’ resources and an indirect effect on stress and burnout, which was mediated by resources. The results indicate that health-promoting leadership describes the leaders’ capability and dedication creating the right working conditions for their employees by increasing the employees’ resources at the workplace. This in turn minimizes the risk of experiencing burnout.

Moderating Effects between Job Insecurity and Intention to Quit in Samples of Slovene and Austrian Workers

Abstract Job insecurity is a serious stressor in the work environment, with negative work-related outcomes. The effects of job insecurity strongly depend on the country’s economic condition. The present study investigated the relationship among job insecurity, job satisfaction, and the intention to quit as well as possible mediating variables (resources/recovery and stress). The samples of 251 Slovene and 219 Austrian workers were analyzed. The data indicated that job insecurity is related to higher stress and intention to quit as well as to lower resources/recovery at the workplace. Stress is an important mediator in the relationship between resources/recovery and job satisfaction as well as intention to quit. These relationships were found in both samples.

The Buffering Effect of Workplace Resources on the Relationship between the Areas of Worklife and Burnout.

Background: Workplace resources are found to play a major role in the stress–strain relationship. However, usually different types of resources are investigated, whereas investigating different facets of stress (“stressors”) receive less attention in research about the relationship between stress, strain and resources. Based upon recent research, we expected that workplace resources moderate the relationship between stressors (operationalized with the areas of worklife) and long-term strain (operationalized with three dimensions of burnout) in the sense that workplace resources buffer the negative effects of stressors on strain.Method: Hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal sample of 141 Austrian workers, who participated two times in an online study over a period of 6 months. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the proposed relationships.Results: The results imply that workload and reward seem to be the most important predictors for burnout. Workload is important for emotional exhaustion, whereas reward is important for cynicism. Value-fit at the workplace plays a significant role for cynicism, but only if resources at the workplace are high. Further moderating effects of resources were found for the outcome personal accomplishment. More specifically, results indicate that having high resources in a high workload environment increases personal accomplishment after a time interval of 6 months. In addition, employees experiencing high levels of control but low workplace resources show less personal accomplishment.Conclusion: Despite the limiting aspects of the relatively short period of time we can see that resources can buffer workload effects. This should be taken into consideration when doing risk assessments in practice as work design should focus on resources even more when high workload can be found.