Poverty rate among employed persons

Relevance/Result

Although in many cases employment or paid work offers effective protection against poverty, employed persons can also be affected by poverty. The cause of poverty despite employment can be analysed in greater depth by observing the poverty rates by socio-occupational variables.

In 2018, in Switzerland, the poverty rate of employed persons was 4%. Persons with a migration background from the first generation had a higher rate than those without a migration background (6% compared with 3%). The poverty rate among employed persons from the second or subsequent generations is identical to that of the population with no migration background.

Trends over time

The poverty rates of employed persons of the different population groups did not vary significantly between 2012 and 2018.

Major region

In all major regions, the poverty rate of employed persons with or without a migration background shows no statistically significant difference. In the Lake Geneva region and in the Espace Mittelland, the poverty rate among employed persons with a migration background is twice as high as that of people without a migration background. This difference is however not statistically significant.

Definitions
Methodologies

In western societies, paid work is considered the best way to reduce the risk of being affected by poverty. The poverty rate of the employed population indicates the proportion of the population who, despite working, is affected by poverty.

The poverty rate of the employed population corresponds to the percentage of employed persons aged 18 or over living in a poor household. According to this indicator, anyone who was employed or self-employed for more than half of the reference period, is considered as an employed person. A household is considered poor if its disposable income is below the poverty line (see indications on the poverty rate above).

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.