A new report from the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF) has been published, focusing on the integration of asylum and subsidiary protection beneficiaries who have joined their family members in Austria. The study’s results cast a sobering light on the situation, particularly in regards to employment and the learning of the German language.
According to the study, only eight percent of the accompanying women were employed within the first three years after their arrival in Austria. In comparison to Austrian women, whose employment participation is higher due to state-subsidized childcare, the employment rate of accompanying women, especially from Afghanistan and Syria, is around 22 percent.
Another aspect of the study concerns social and cultural integration. Many accompanying women, particularly those from traditional societies, continue to orient themselves according to traditional role models and have limited contact with the broader society. This leads to a lower interest in learning German, as they attend significantly fewer German courses than women who directly filed an asylum application in Austria. These women often live in isolated communities and focus more on family responsibilities.
In contrast, young migrants who arrived in Austria as minors show a higher willingness to learn German. Their employment rate is also higher than that of adults. For example, 57 percent of directly admitted young men are employed, while the figure is 41 percent for accompanying young men. The group of Syrian migrants is particularly notable, with 48 percent of directly admitted Syrians being employed, but only 34 percent of accompanying Syrians.
The study criticizes a crucial point of integration policy, as the measures of family reunification, which were originally intended to enable the accompanying persons to integrate more quickly, seem not to have achieved the desired success. In many cases, the women are not even informed about existing integration programs. The accompanying persons, especially women, often remain in traditional structures, which hinders their integration.