The Vienna Diversity Monitor is a tri-annual report on the city’s integration processes and diversity policies. It includes 8 areas, 60 indicators, 11 benchmarks which reveal the structural and systemic reasons which lead to inequality related to migration status and/or ethnic origin. The monitor is based on existing statistical sources and everyone who resides in Vienna for over 3 months is registered and is counted in the statistics.
The Monitor results are used to inform policy decisions. For example the obstacles to integration revealed by the report can be related to the legal framework (eg restricted work permits, access to public housing, voting rights etc.).
The city has also learned that 27% of Viennese residents above 16 who are eligible are currently excluded from voting due to the legal restrictions on the voting rights of third country nationals and the restrictive naturalisation regime (eg. 18% of 3rd country nationals are excluded from naturalisation because of income requirements, double citizenship is not allowed except in rare cases). In order to empower non-citizens to take part in the political life, in 2013 Vienna introduced petition rights independent of nationality.
Another example is the initiative taken to support newly-arrived youngsters of migrant background between 15 and 18 who are not in education, employment or training. The report showed that the reason for their “dropout” is structural - they have been to primary school in their country and when arrive to Austria they cannot go to the secondary school due to lack of language. Later they catch up on language but are too old to go back to primary school. So Vienna created a special “youth college” to cater for these children.
The City of Vienna’s integration department also provides advice to other departments in relation to diversity and inclusion. For example the clubs for elderly were growing empty because their information, activities and staff were not adapted to a newly diverse elderly population. When changes were adopted, the clubs became popular with elderly migrants.
The Diversity Monitor also serves as a tool to track the diversity performance of the administration: it covers the work of 43 departments and since 2008 has revealed that those who implement diversity measures (eg diversify staff, provide multilingual information, diversity training etc.) have fewer complaints and higher customer satisfaction.
