Abstract (eng)
Sociological research on poverty considers the intergenerational transmission of poverty as one of the most lasting mechanisms for persistence of societal poverty structures. In particular, an increased risk of poverty for foreign individuals with direct experience of migration is observed due to disadvantaged participation in education and employment, therefore also children and young people in migrant households are more likely to grow up at risk of poverty. However, the extent to which the transmission of poverty risks in migrant families in Austria is concentrated across generations in terms of social structure has not been a subject of in-depth research so far. This master thesis therefore investigates ethnic differences in the intergenerational transmission of poverty risks in Austria and the related explanatory power via the link to the labour market. The Austrian EU-SILC (2019) with the Ad-hoc module "Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages" for 25- to 59-year-olds is drawn upon as data basis for a secondary analysis. Binary logistic regression models are used to estimate the risk of income poverty at the household level for the second generation of migrants in relation to individuals without a migration background. The results do point to tendencies of a migration-specific transmission pattern, as the second migration generation is descriptively marginally more likely to be at risk of poverty. However, the hazard structure on the dimension of the current living context shows a clear leveling to the autochthonous population. Controlling for socioeconomic status factors in the parental household at age 14, socioeconomic status and labor market link in adulthood, second-generation migrants even show a poverty-reducing interaction with a high parental educational background in reference to autochthonous individuals. These findings tie up on the lack of systematic representation of the second generation of migrants in Austria's poverty statistics and highlight for descendants of migrant families in Austria the potential for upward social mobility to overcome poverty risk.