School and Residential Segregation in Vienna: Trends, Mechanisms, Consequences

Vienna's growing ethnic diversity has raised new concerns about the equity of its schools. Education and housing are key institutions that shape segregation, and thus structural inequality and social mobility. While research has linked unequal educational outcomes to school and residential segregation, the underlying mechanisms remain understudied. Vienna is an interesting case of public and academic interest, due to growing disparities in educational outcomes, segregation, and its unique institutional structure to counteract residential segregation. We ask how school and residential segregation interact in Vienna, what drives their evolution, and how their interplay affects educational outcomes. Drawing on a newly constructed, geocoded 100m×100m raster data set linking individual students to their parents and schools, we are the first to track interacting segregation patterns from 2008 to 2021 in Vienna. First, we show changes in segregation, decompose them, and relate them to policy shifts. Second, we examine how parental decisions, or “native flight,” contribute to segregation. Third, we relate segregation to individual student outcomes. This is one of the first studies to apply new, quantitative, intersectional research methods to Austria's educational landscape. The project contributes to urban, educational, and inequality research by revealing patterns, drivers, and consequences of the interaction of school and residential segregation in Vienna.