Interim report

DOWNLOAD 2023 sTUDY ON aLTERNATIVE cIVILIAN sERVICE - INTERIM REPORT
 

Final Report

Download Final Report 2023

Download 2023 sTUDY ON aLTERNATIVE cIVILIAN sERVICE iNTERIM rEPORT ppt - FROM 21. August 2024

Reports from 2012 and 2019

Download ZivildienstStudie 2012

Download ZivildienstStudie 2019

Media

Studie zu Zivildienst (C. Grünhaus in Radio Wien Stadtjournal)

Viele Männer bleiben nach dem Zivildienst im Ehrenamt (C. Grünhaus in Ö3 Mittagsjournal)

Zivildienst als Einstieg ins Ehrenamt (C. Grünhaus in Radio Wien Stadtjournal 12:00)

Neue Zivildienststudie: Immer mehr werden Hauptberufliche (C. Grünhaus in Ö1 Mittagsjournal)

Zivildienst ist systemrelevant (C. Grünhaus in ORF ZIB)

Bedeutung von Zivildienstleistenden in Österreich herausgestellt (ORF eins - ZIB Flash 1)

Studie zu Nutzen von Zivildienst (C. Grünhaus in Radio Wien Stadtjournal 17:00)

Ergebnis der aktuellen Zivildienststudie der WU Wien (C. Grünhaus in Ö3 Journal um fünf)

Studie über Nutzen von Zivildienst (C. Grünhaus in Ö1 Abendjournal)

Zivildienst als Joboption (C. Grünhaus in ORF Radio Bundesland)

Zivildienst macht Junge widerstandsfähiger - puls24.at

Zivildienst macht Junge widerstandsfähiger - Salzburger Nachrichten

Zivildienst macht Junge widerstandsfähiger - Vorarlberg Online

Photo credit: ©BKA/Antia-Tatic

Contact

For five decades now, civil service has existed in Austria as an alternative to military service. In recent years, an average of around 45 percent of conscripts have opted for civil service, with the meaningfulness of the civil service being a decisive factor.

In 2024, the NPO Competence Center examined the "social and economic benefits of civil service" for the third time based on data for the year 2023, taking a closer look at the benefits for the health and social care sectors.

Based on a cost-benefit analysis, the real scenario "civil service (CS)" was compared with the hypothetical alternative scenario "no civil service (no CS)".

In 2023, civil servants performed an estimated 16.3 million hours of service. Most hours were spent in emergency services (36.7%) and in elderly care (9.3%) and disability assistance (7.7%). Through their work, civil servants gain contact with social groups and insights into problems that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. For many, this leads to a changed attitude towards social and political issues and greater understanding of the problems faced by disadvantaged groups. For some, the expertise acquired during their service is also very useful for their professional future. The experiences during civil service shape a portion of the civil servants so much that they continue to engage in society even after their service. Our results across all three studies show that about one-third of each cohort of civil servants remain as volunteers in the institutions, contributing to the so-called volunteer effect by providing many unpaid service hours, thereby contributing to service quality and relieving the staff.

The institutions also confirm that civil service makes a high to very high contribution to maintaining and developing the quality of care for service recipients and relieves the burden on full-time employees. Without civil service, the institutions estimate that they would maintain around 70% of the service hours provided by civil servants by hiring new full-time employees (57.2%), increasing the workload of existing staff (29.3%), or volunteers (14%).

An overall assessment of all relevant stakeholders, who incur costs or benefit from services or effects, shows that civil service, in its current form, is very advantageous for society in 2023, as the overall consideration of all stakeholders involved results in lower costs (-303 million euros). This positive cost effect for civil service is complemented by a significantly positive service effect. In the civil service scenario, services or positive effects amounted to a total volume of about 1.8 billion euros. In the alternative scenario "no civil service," it would be only about 1.3 billion euros. This difference of more than 500 million euros is largely attributable to the volunteer effect. Considering both costs and services, this results in a total difference of 804 million euros as a positive overall effect of civil service in terms of costs and services.