Equality for women: new measures to combat income scissors!

Equality for women: new measures to combat income scissors!

St. Pölten, Österreich - On February 28, 2025, State Councilor Christiane Teschl-Hofmeister in St. Pölten spoke about the current challenges of equality and care in Lower Austria. On the occasion of the upcoming World Women's Day on March 8, she pointed out the significant differences in income between men and women. The difference in income in Austria was 11.7 percent, which means that women do 43 working days for free. In Lower Austria, especially 28 percent of single pensioners are at risk of poverty, while this value for men is only 17 percent. Teschl-Hofmeister called for measures to promote better professional opportunities for women, also through the expansion of online tools and initiatives such as the "Girls Day" to increase the career points in well-paid industries, such as ots.at reports .

care requirement in Lower Austria

In addition, the state councilor addressed the "Lower Austria Nursing and Supervision Strategy 2025+", which provides three focus on provider development: the expansion offensive in the inpatient area, the development of mobile support offers and a digitization offensive. According to Teschl-Hofmeister, the demographic change and quality of life will be expected to increase the need for care in the next few years. The group of people, the care allowance, will increase by up to 34 percent by 2035. The financing for the creation of new care places was recently increased significantly, which shows that the government is proactively responding to the increasing need, as Stadtlandzeitung.com .

The new forms of living that will be launched in 2025 in the form of pilot projects are supervised residential offers that are supposed to offer more support for older people in their everyday life. The care and support situation in Lower Austria therefore seems to be well prepared for the upcoming challenges in terms of the well-being of the older population. Teschl-Hofmeister emphasized that digitization was crucial to relieve nurses and work more effectively, while the demand for care services is continuously increasing.