Cultural Demography
Austrians are a homogeneous people; ethnic Germans account for more than 88 percent of a total population of just over eight million. Croatians, Slovenes, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Roma make up close to 10 percent of the population, with naturalized citizens, including Arabs and Turks, comprising the remaining two percent.
The predominant, and official, language is German. The Croats in Burgenland on the Hungarian border and the Slovenes in Carinthia (southern, central Austria) are the two primary ethnic minorities.
In terms of religious affiliation, about 78 percent of Austrians are Roman Catholic. Small Protestant minorities are located mainly in Burgenland, Carinthia and Vienna and make up about 5 percent of the population. The remaining 17 percent are made up of other religious affiliations, including Muslims.
Human Development
With a high gross Austria is a wealthy country (as measured according to purchasing power parity in $US). According to recent estimates, Austrians have an average life expectancy at birth of 79.65 years of age (76.7 years for males, 82.7 years for females). The infant mortality rate is 4.37 deaths per 1,000 live births, also according to estimates published in recent years. An estimated 98 percent of Austrians, age 15 and older, can read and write. About 5.4 percent of GDP is spent in Austria on educational expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be excellent.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Austria in the very high human development category, at 25th place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.