Demographic Profile of Syrians in Austria

Migration is an important issue for Austria, a central European country with 8.8 million inhabitants in 2018. Roughly 47,000 persons born in Syria were residing in Austria at the beginning of that year, most of them arriving after 2014. This chapter provides insights on the Syrian population in Austria, including age, gender, legal status, education, marital status, fertility, previous labor market participation, previous occupations and religious identity. Thereafter, the Syrian diaspora in Austria is a fairly young population, with implications for the educational system, labor market and welfare state. The observation that the Syrian diaspora is much better educated than the overall Syrian population in pre-war times, implies that Syria not only lost a substantial share of its population due to death and external displacement, but witnessed a brain-drain, affecting reconstruction of the country after the war.