Difficulty making ends meet

Relevance/Result

This indicator shows the level of difficulty in coping with regular household expenditure in the different population groups under observation.

Note: On the German and French version of this page, the tables have been updated with the latest data. Graphs and texts will be updated shortly.

In 2019, 11% of the total resident population lived in a household that declared it had problems in making ends meet. People with no migration background are considerably less likely to have difficulty in making ends meet than those with a migration background (7% compared with 17% respectively). The first generation is more affected than the second or subsequent generation (18% versus 13%).

Trends over time

Between 2014 and 2019, the share of people living in a household that had difficulty in making ends meet remained overall stable across all observed population groups.

Major region

Depending on the major region considered, the population with a migration background is between 2 and 4 times more likely to experience difficulty in making ends meet than is the case for the population without a migration background. The greatest difference is found in the region of Zurich where the proportion of persons with a migration background reporting difficulties in making ends meet is 4 times higher than those without a migration background (13% compared with 2%). The difference observed in Ticino is not statistically significant.

Definitions
Methodologies

Taking into account your household's total income, how do you manage to make ends meet at the end of the month? In other words, how do you cope with making regular necessary expenditure? Would you say that it is...?

1 : very difficult
2 : difficult
3 : rather difficult
4 : quite easy
5 : easy
6 : very easy?

For the purposes of this indicator, persons that answered either 1: very difficult or 2: difficult are considered as having trouble making ends meet.

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.