Der Fehlzeitenreport vermittelt einen Überblick über Entwicklung und Verteilung der gesundheitlich bedingten Fehlzeiten in
Österreich. 2018 verbrachten die unselbständig Beschäftigten durchschnittlich 13,1 Kalendertage im Krankenstand. Diese Zahl
war etwas höher als im Vorjahr und entsprach einem Verlust an Jahresarbeitszeit von 3,6%. Der aktuelle Fehlzeitenreport beleuchtet
in einem Schwerpunktkapitel die Chancen und Risiken, die sich durch die Arbeitszeitgestaltung für die Gesundheit ergeben.
Neue Formen der Arbeitszeitflexibilität gewinnen an Bedeutung, während etablierte Modelle wie Schicht- und Nachtarbeit nach
wie vor stark verbreitet sind. Der Gestaltung der Arbeitszeit kommt vor diesem Hintergrund eine wichtige Rolle zur Förderung
von Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden zu. Die gesundheitlichen Auswirkungen eines bestimmten Arbeitszeitarrangements ergeben sich
aber aus dem vielschichtigen Zusammenspiel der Arbeitszeit mit den anderen Arbeitsbedingungen und mit individuellen Faktoren.
Österreich ist in den kommenden Jahrzehnten mit einem deutlichen Wandel der demographischen Struktur hin zu einem höheren
Anteil der Älteren konfrontiert. Daraus ergeben sich in vielen Bereichen der Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft Herausforderungen.
Insbesondere im Gesundheitswesen steigt mit der Alterung der medizinische Versorgungsbedarf der Gesellschaft. Dem zu erwartenden
Anstieg der Nachfrage nach Ärzten und Ärztinnen steht eine vergleichsweise ungünstige Ärztedemographie gegenüber. Die vorliegende
Studie quantifiziert für Wien das aktuelle und künftige Ausmaß an geriatrischen Leistungen im niedergelassenen Bereich wie
in Krankenanstalten und schätzt den künftigen Bedarf an ärztlicher Leistung auf Basis von heutiger Leistungserbringung für
unterschiedliche Altersgruppen der Bevölkerung. Da der Begriff der Geriatrie anhand von Statistiken kaum abgegrenzt werden
kann, bildet eine Befragung von Wiener Ärztinnen und Ärzten zur aktuellen Verteilung der erbrachten medizinischen Leistungen
auf unterschiedliche Altersgruppen die Grundlage dieser Schätzungen. Die Ergebnisse der Befragung werden dabei mit Projektionen
zur demographischen Entwicklung der Bevölkerung (zur Bestimmung des Bedarfs an ärztlichen Leistungen) und der Ärzte- bzw.
Absolventenpopulation (zur Bestimmung des Angebots an ärztlichen Leistungen) verknüpft, um künftige Versorgungslücken zu identifizieren.
Wie die Ergebnisse zeigen, entsteht durch die Entwicklung des Ärzteangebotes und der Ärztenachfrage bis 2050 eine markante
Lücke: Die gesamte Nachfrage wird nach diesen Projektionen bis 2050 um rund ein Drittel zunehmen, während das Angebot selbst
unter optimistischen Annahmen um nur ein Sechstel steigen wird. Die geringste Lücke wird für die niedergelassenen Fachärzte
und Fachärztinnen erwartet.
This article discusses the possibility of adopting a complexity theory approach to the study of language policy and planning
(LPP). Besides, it argues that agent-based modelling provides a significant support in this sense. Indeed, while agent-based
modelling has become a major ally of researchers in the social sciences, it remains largely unexploited in the study of language-related
issues in society. As a central tool of complexity theory, agent-based models (ABMs) lend themselves particularly well to
the study of all sorts of complex systems. To provide justification for the use of ABMs in LPP, I show how language issues
display the typical traits of complex systems and how ABMs can easily translate ideas and notions from the literature into
computer-simulated processes. To support my argument, I discuss communication within multinational corporations as an example
of a highly complex language matter. In particular, I focus on how language skills impact the process of knowledge creation
and knowledge sharing among employees. By means of a model based on a number of straightforward rules, I show how poor language
skills (or an utter lack thereof) risks creating an unbalanced distribution of knowledge (and, consequently, of power) across
language groups and how this unbalanced distribution is very sensitive to initial conditions. On the contrary, average language
skills seem to support communication well enough to avoid skews that favour even slightly more numerous language groups.
The paper uses micro-data from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey to examine an uncharted question: are multilingual immigrants
superior at learning the destination language? The article adopts an instrumental variable (IV) approach where the number
of foreign languages known by the immigrant is instrumented using the following variables: 1. the number of nationalities
of the immigrant's father and 2. the number of foreign countries where the individual has settled prior to his arrival in
Spain. Above all, these instruments pass well several validity tests. The IV estimates show that for every additional foreign
language learned by the immigrant the probability of being proficient in the destination language – Spanish – increases by
10.7 percent. This effect is equivalent to multiple years of formal education, to living in Spain for more than 4 years, and
as important as having a mother tongue linguistically close to Spanish. We find mild evidence that women reap larger benefits
from multilingualism than men (13.0 against 10.0 percent).
This article examines the relationship between foreign language skills and the employment status of natives in Germany, Italy
and Spain. Using a probit model and data from Eurostat's Adult Education Survey 2011, this article studies the conditional
correlation between knowledge of English and French as foreign languages, and the probability of being employed, comparatively,
for men and women. The results reveal that skills in English increase the probability of being employed for men in the three
countries, respectively, by 3.4, 4.3 and 5.2 percent. Knowledge of English increases the probability of being employed for
women in Germany and Italy – respectively, by 5.6 and 5.7 percent – but not in Spain. The results also show that very good
skills are associated with a higher probability of being employed than sufficient or good skills. The conditional correlation
between knowledge of English and employment status for men is larger in countries where skills in this language are less common
among the population, and where the unemployment rate is higher. This is consistent with the fundamental economic concept
of scarcity. Estimates for French are not statistically significant.
The globalisation of labour markets makes language skills one of the key competences required by employers nowadays. The purpose
of this paper is to estimate the wage premium from the foreign language skills earned by Poles. Poles seem to be a good case
study, because the Polish language is not used for international communication and as many as 58 percent of Poles command
at least one foreign language. I use data from three waves (2012-2014) of the Human Capital Balance survey with a pooled sample
of about 35,000 individuals. I estimate a wage equation with the Heckman correction for selection to employment and I check
for robustness with propensity score matching. I find that the advanced command of a foreign language yields a wage premium
of 11 percent on average. Interestingly, I find a much higher wage premium from proficiency in Spanish (32 percent), French
(22 percent) or Italian (15 percent) than from proficiency in English (11 percent) or German (12 percent).
In this paper, we investigate the effect of the level of English skills on the labour market outcomes of Turkish women, using
data from the Adult Education Survey of 2007. By adopting a bivariate equation framework, we jointly model the effect of English
skills on labour market status and, conditional on being a wage earner, on monthly earnings and occupational status. The multinomial
equation that explains labour market status allows for a different effect of language knowledge on the probability of being
employed, unemployed but actively looking for a job, an unpaid family worker or involved in household tasks. The results indicate
that being proficient in English is conditionally associated with a higher probability of being employed as a wage earner
and, to a lesser extent, unemployed but looking for a job, whereas it decreases the likelihood of being involved in household
tasks. Moreover, there is a significant conditional correlation between having a high level of skills in English and earnings,
which is only modestly reduced when job-related variables and (especially) occupation dummies are included as additional controls.
Indeed, being proficient in English barely affects occupational status when selection into employment status is controlled
for. Therefore, the knowledge of foreign languages (in this case English) seems to stimulate labour market participation and
earnings capacity, but does not substantially affect the occupational position of women in the Turkish labour market.
Our paper studies the effects of daily dialect-speaking on hourly wages of native Dutch workers. The unconditional difference
in median hourly wage between Standard Dutch speakers and dialect speakers is about 10 percent for males and 8 percent for
females. Taking into account differences in personal characteristics, family characteristics and geographical differences,
wage differences are reduced by about 6 percentage points.
Santiago Budría, Alberto Colino, Carlos Martínez de Ibarreta
This paper presents estimates of the impact of host language proficiency on the probability of immigrants having an employment.
The article uses data from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey and relies on two complementary econometric approaches, a
2SLS instrumental variable model and a bivariate probit model. Host language proficiency is instrumented using Bleakley and
Chin (Rev Econ Stat 86:481-496, 2004) strategy, which exploits the fact that younger children learn languages more easily
than older ones. Average treatment effects indicate that host language proficiency raises the probability of having a job
by about 15 and 22 percentage points among men and women, respectively. However, local effects can be more than twice as large.
