Macroeconomic perspective

In order to observe the overall income situation of all households in Switzerland, figures are used from the Swiss National Accounts (NA). From a macroeconomic point of view these figures provide an overview of the level, composition and trends of the incomes received by all households in Switzerland. However, they do not reveal the distribution of incomes among individual households (microeconomic perspective). Such information can be provided by the Household Budget Survey (HBS) and the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) as well as the analyses based on these statistics. Due to diverging definitions, a direct comparison of the figures presented here with the results from the HBS and SILC is not possible.

Total income

Total income rose by 82.0% in the period from 1995 to 2022. Once population growth and the development of prices have been taken into account, growth in inflation-adjusted total income per capita in this period was only 27.2%.

Income components

The shares of total income from each of the main components evolved in different directions between 1995 and 2022. Income from employment is the main income component, representing approximately two-thirds of total income. During the period under observation, the share of income from employment was quite stable. The share of property income experienced a downward trend. The share of transfer income, on the other hand, rose from 19.8% in 1995 to 23.6% in 2022.

Property income

The importance of the individual components of property income altered considerably in the period from 1995 to 2022. Whereas the share of property income accounted for by interest fell by three quarters, the share of distributed income of corporations more than doubled. The share of other investment income was the only one to stay within a range of 43% to 54% and in 2022 it was the same as in 2015 at 44.3%.

Transfer income

Due to the change in classification of health insurance benefits after health insurance became compulsory in 1996, the diagram starts from 1996. In the composition of transfer income, the general increase in the share of other social insurance benefits between 1996 and 2022 was noticeable, whereas the shares of the social security benefits in cash and the non-life insurance claims declined.

Methodological explanations

Total income received by households corresponds to the income that is entered on the resources side of the allocation of primary income account (II.1.2) in the SNA and on the secondary distribution of income account (II.2 by final expenditure). It encompasses income from employment, property income and transfer income.

Income from employment includes the gross wages of employees (basic wages, premiums, bonuses etc.) including employees' and employers' social contributions and before income tax (compensation of employees D.1) as well as the employment income of self-employed persons and rental income received by households (net operating surplus B.2n).

Property income includes interest (D.41) including financial intermediate services indirectly measured (FISIM), distributed income of corporations (D.42) as well as other investment income (D.44).

Transfer income includes social security benefits in cash (D.621, e.g. AHV, IV, EO, ALV etc.), other social insurance benefits (D.622, e.g. UV, OKPC, BV etc.), social assistance benefits in cash (D.623), non-life insurance claims (D.72) and miscellaneous current transfers (D.75).

The bracketed numbers correspond to the SNA codes.

The above descriptions are based on an idea that was already raised in the publication „Finanzielle Situation der privaten Haushalte, Zusammensetzung und Verteilung der Einkommen“ in 2007 (see below, available in German and French). However, the figures can no longer be compared with one another directly

Further information

Tables