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Linz – It was already clear to the pollsters at the Linz-based Market Research Institute that climate change would not be top of mind at the turn of the year 2020/21 when they launched the latest survey. A year ago, concern about whether effective measures against climate change would be taken was still at the top of the list of worries among female Austrians (43 percent expressed great concern) and male Austrians (38 percent). “It was clear that this concern is overridden by Corona, however, today 39 percent of women and 30 percent of men continue to be in great concern about climate change,” says Market Institute head David Pfarrhofer.
What surprises him more is that the Corona crisis has brought social issues back to the top of the domestic population’s list of concerns: 49 percent are very worried that a new austerity package will come as a result of the national debt taken on this year, and about the same amount is worried that the gap between rich and poor will widen further.
Distribution issues redefined
For a decade, this economic divide in society had been at the top of the list of concerns voiced by eligible voters at the turn of the year; only toward the end of the decade had the climate issue come to the fore. Now, its ranking as a “major concern” has jumped from 35 percent to 48 percent in just one year.
Also high on the list of worries: whether a massive tax increase will come to pay back the national debt (46 percent), whether the government will take the right measures for Austria’s future (43 percent) and whether there will be another lockdown (41 percent).
Pfarrhofer: “Personal concerns are much less pronounced among respondents than societal concerns. Seven out of ten Austrians are not worried at all about the course of their relationship, and the same applies to the question of whether they will have time for themselves and time for their family. But job security is also an issue for relatively few people: 14 percent are very worried about the security of their own jobs, 22 percent somewhat and 63 percent not at all. That’s almost unchanged from the turn of 2019/20.”
Optimism has returned
It is therefore not surprising that, all in all, the population is happy and, to a large extent, optimistic about the new year, he said. After the sharp drop in the optimism question in October (at that time only 23 percent were optimists), the proportion of optimists has stabilized at 37 percent, that of pessimists has fallen from 43 to 36 percent, and the rest are undecided.
Most importantly, the proportion of people who are completely unhappy, at three percent, is within the range of one to four percent that has been established since 2007.
Low concerns about health
Among the questions that can be tracked in the long-term trend is the concern “whether my health will deteriorate” – and here, too, the answers are in line with the long-term average. Only 16 percent are very worried about this – Corona or no Corona. In the previous year, the figure was 17 percent, and at the turn of the year 2013/14 it was as high as 21 percent, without the threat of a pandemic.
The questions actually related to Corona, which were included in the tried-and-tested questionnaire for comparison purposes, are only in the midfield of the worry catalog. For example, 36 percent are very concerned that the Corona vaccinations could have serious side effects – these concerns are about the same as those about deterioration in the pension system (36 percent, slightly more than in the previous year, at about the same level as in the early 10s) or the concerns about climate change.
Threat to fundamental rights
Three out of ten Austrians are very concerned about democratic rights and possible restrictions on personal freedom through state surveillance.
The Market Research Institute asked more than 30 things that could happen in 2021. The Austrian population assigns the highest probability of occurrence to an improvement in cooperation between the USA and Europe under President Joe Biden, with 82 percent believing this will happen. The lowest probability, at nine percent, is assumed for a fair distribution of refugees in Europe. Only one in four also believes that immigrants will be successfully integrated into society.
Upswing and new taxes
The majority expect the introduction of new eco-taxes (77 percent) and a fair and problem-free distribution of the Corona vaccine (58 percent).
- Source: derstandard.at/picture: pixabay.com
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