By Dimitri Prandner (JKU Linz), Markus Hadler (Universität Graz), Otto Bodi-Fernandez (Universität Graz), Christopher Etter (Universität Salzburg)
The Social Survey Austria (SSÖ) has been addressing these and other questions since 1986 and provides in-depth insights into the opinions, attitudes and behavior of the Austrian population. The study is carried out regularly in close cooperation between the universities of Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Vienna.
The SSÖ was conducted for the eighth time in 2024, providing an up-to-date and comprehensive data set that allows social developments in Austria to be analyzed over time. Researchers can track long-term developments or identify and analyze new challenges and issues that affect the population. The SSÖ thus makes an important contribution to understanding social dynamics in Austria. But not only that: In addition to a section specific to Austria, the SSÖ also regularly integrates modules from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), which means that the study results can also be compared with up to 44 other countries.
Focus topics digitalization and health
In the 2024 survey wave, the ISSP modules “Health and Health Care” (2021) and “Digital Societies” (2024) were covered.
With regard to the topic of digitalization, the results show that
- 81% of the population uses the internet at least once a day, while 7% have not used it at all in the last 12 months,
- the majority rate their ability to use the internet as “very good” on a five-point scale,
- however, around 17% have been victims of cybercrime and 14% have been confronted with harassment on the internet.
One example of the positive effects of Internet use is that 38% of respondents have used it to interpret medical findings and considered this to be helpful.
Furthermore, initial evaluations paint a predominantly positive picture in terms of health: 45% of respondents rate their state of health as “good”, 27.1% as “very good” and 4.6% even as “excellent”. This contrasts with 19.4% who rate their health as “average” and only 3.9% who rate it as “poor”. In addition, satisfaction with the Austrian healthcare system tends to be high, despite potential for improvement: 72% of respondents are at least fairly satisfied, 18% are neutral, while 10% express dissatisfaction.
Care deficits are mainly due to long waiting lists: 23.5% of respondents stated that they had not received treatment for this reason. Lack of time due to work or family commitments was cited by 12.6% as an obstacle, while 8.7% cited financial barriers as the reason for not receiving healthcare services.
Want to take a look at the data yourself? You can find the SSÖ 2024 in the AUSSDA Dataverse.
- Methodology of the Social Survey Austria:
The Social Survey Austria is a time-series study that has been conducted eight times to date, starting in 1986. The SSÖ provides representative insights (in terms of gender, age, education and federal state) into the attitudes and opinions of the Austrian resident population and documents socio-structural change. The first five waves of the Social Survey between 1986 and 2018 were carried out using personal interviews. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a switch to mixed-mode data collection. The SSÖ 2024 was carried out using an online web survey and printed questionnaires. The study participants were randomly selected from the central civil register.
