Housing condition in terms of facilities and noise

Relevance/Result

A household’s housing situation and living conditions depend on its financial means but this is not the only contributing factor. This indicator reveals an aspect of quality of life that may not be the same for each group of the population. Physical, spatial and material comfort is an indicator of integration, especially as it has an influence on the risk of social exclusion.

Housing deprivation

In 2018, people with a migration background from the second or subsequent generations were two times more likely to face one or more aspects of housing deprivation than those with no migration background (24% compared with 12%). The first generation has an intermediate rate of housing deprivation (17%).

Noisy neighbourhood

In 2018, the rate of people living in housing located in a neighbourhood that was considered to be too noisy was significantly higher among persons with a migration background from the second or subsequent generations (26%) and from the first generation (20%) than those with no migration background (16%).

Trends over time

Housing deprivation

From 2014 to 2018, the share of people confronted with aspects of housing deprivation decreased in the population without a migration background (-2.7 percentage points), whereas it increased among the second or subsequent generations (+6.4 percentage points).

Noisy neighbourhood

Between 2014 and 2018, the share of people living in housing located in a neighbourhood that was considered to be too noisy decreased in the first generation (-4 percentage points).

Major region

Housing deprivation

The population with a migration background was significantly more likely to be subject to aspects of housing deprivation than the population without a migration background in Espace Mittelland (22% compared with 14%), in Northwest Switzerland (19% compared with 9%) and in Zurich (18% compared with 11%). In the other major regions, the differences between the population with and without a migration background were not statistically significant or the data were not presented due to a lack of observations.

Noisy neighbourhood

As far as the proportion of people living in a neighbourhood that is considered as being too noisy is concerned, only Northwest and Eastern Switzerland showed statistically significant differences between those with and without a migration background (respectively 27% compared with 16% and 24% compared with 11%).

Definitions
Methodologies

The indicator uses two criteria to analyse housing conditions:

1) The indicator is defined as the percentage of the population faced with at least one of the following four major housing problems:
• damp housing (leaking roof; damp walls, floors or foundations; rotten window frames or floors),
• too dark,
• no shower or bath,
• no private indoor flushing toilet.

2) Percentage of people living in a noisy neighbourhood.

A single member of the household was asked these questions and the answers are imputed to all household members. For households comprised of several adults with a different migration status, the same value calculated for the entire household is used for persons with and without a migration background.

Following changes to the survey framework and improvements in the weighting model, results from 2014 on can no longer be directly compared with those from previous years (series break).

You can access the indicators in one of the following ways

All indicators

Some 68 indicators describe the current situation and changes in the integration of the population with a migration background and/or of foreign nationals in Switzerland in eleven areas of life in our society.

Key indicators

34 key indicators provide an overview of the progress made on the journey towards integration and the state of integration of the population with a migration background. If this information is lacking, the population is shown by nationality, and where this variable is available, the country of birth.