!!!Familie

Family: The development of the family in Austria follows the trends 
prevalent in affluent Western, industrialised societies in the 
20%%sup th/%  century. Along with the drastic reduction in the numbers 
of workers in the agricultural sector in relation to the remaining 
population, the number of traditional family-run businesses has also 
dropped dramatically, as well as the value of the family as a 
production factor. Socialisation has become the predominant function 
of the family, a function schools are beginning to adopt more and more 
in the general educational process as well. For women there is an 
increasing separation between the two aspects of life, work and the 
family. The family has also increasingly become a place to spend 
leisure time.

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In what is known as the "demographic transition", a decrease in the 
death rate is followed by a drop in the birth rate, albeit in 
different phases. As life expectancy rises, a new phase of the life 
cycle has emerged, where elderly people share a household. Two-person 
or one-person households with elderly persons have become increasingly 
common in the last few decades. As marriage gradually becomes less of 
an institution, step-families, families with single parents and 
families with unwedded partners are becoming more widespread as new 
family constellations. The number of children per family has dropped 
to a record low, and the average number of persons per family 
household is also decreasing. As in many other large Western cities, 
Vienna has a greater number of one-person households than family 
households; these statistics also include the "singles" phenomenon, a 
clear indication of the trend towards putting more emphasis on the 
individual.

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A special feature of the family constellation in Austria in the past 
is the extraordinarily high percentage of out-of-wedlock births. The 
illegitimate birth rate in Carinthia, Upper Styria, in Lungau, Pongau, 
Pinzgau in the province of Salzburg and in western Tirol exceeded that 
of the rest of Europe. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the 
extraordinarily high number of farm hands employed in agricultural 
families. Although the need for farm hands has since diminished, 
former attitudes toward illegitimacy have remained in these regions.


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