6 Country Reports on Youth Work - Jugendpolitik in Europa

10 Results from the Local Statistical Surveys
As youth work is provided at local level the concept of the study envisaged a survey of youth
work structures in four municipalities in every country. Thus the locally collected data should
allow to balance the available data at national level.
10.1 Austria
Data base:
The survey in Austria was conducted in four districts:
70
� Dornbirn, Vorarlberg; mid-sized city; in the western Austria;
� Kirchdorf an der Krems, Upper Austria; a rural area of central Austria with small
municipalities; in Central Austria;
� Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, 15 th district of Vienna; characterised by a high number of
immigrants; east
� Donaustadt, 22 nd district of Vienna; the largest district in terms of population and area;
East
In these districts 169 questionnaires were sent to all youth organisations. The rate of return
at 37% was quite low. Some youth organisations apparently had to talk to their management
to get the permission to fill out the questionnaire, so that some reluctance to give out data
could be detected. Another possible reason for not returning the questionnaires could be the
organisation of rural youth work. Structures are often quite loose, with voluntary youth
workers whose focus is – apart from the few hours a week in the youth association or group
– on their main working life.
Findings:
The picture of youth work that can be drawn at local level is that youth work is mostly
provided by youth associations (53%) followed by open youth work (38%) youth activities
accessible without association membership, and youth initiatives (9%), which are activities
provided by youngsters to youngsters without the involvement of adults or organisations. The
percentage of public organisations among is 18%.
The main action field of youth work at local level is the provision of group-oriented leisure
time activities. Nevertheless the range of activities is wide - as illustrated by the following
table: