The population’s living conditions indicate the life opportunities available to individuals and reflect areas of social policy intervention. Living conditions include material aspects (such as income or housing) and intangible aspects (such as education and training or health).
Household financial situation
Training and education
Working life
Health and disabilities
Reconciliation between work and family life
Housing
Social relations
General existence
Financial resources influence living conditions and levels of consumption of goods and services. They may be the cause of inequalities in terms of material resources (for example housing, material consumer goods) and intangible resources (for example education and training and health).
In 2019, the median disposable equivalised income is CHF 3929 per month, i.e. half of the Swiss resident population have an income above, while the other half have an income below this amount. It has increased by 15% between 1998 and 2014. After a notable increase from 2008 to 2013, the median disposable equivalised income has stagnated between 2015 and 2019.
From 2015 to 2017, the disposable income of persons living alone was CHF 4778 for those under 65 and CHF 3417 for those aged 65 and over. For couples under 65 without children, this figure was CHF 8846 and for lone-parent households it was CHF 6123 compared with CHF 9787 for couples with children.
The skills and qualifications acquired through education and training enable people to adapt to society and to an economy that is constantly changing.
In 2021, 12.6% of the permanent resident population aged from 25 to 64 had not completed education or training, 42.4% had completed upper secondary education (a matura school, upper secondary specialised school or vocational education) and 45.0% had a tertiary level diploma (advanced professional education and training and higher education institutions).
In 2016, a third of the population faced obstacles in their education and training. 23.8% took part in education and training activities but would have liked to carry on further and 9.4% of adults, although keen to educate themselves, had not attended any education or training. The other two thirds were satisfied with their education and training situation and had either received the education and training that they wished to have (45.2%) or had no intention of completing education and training (21.5%).
Ideally, work is a way to finance one’s needs, to develop skills and to fulfil oneself both professionally and socially. Optimum working conditions allow people to develop long-term plans, have access to a good level of social security and to organise their daily life effectively. In contrast, if their working conditions are poor, daily life can become precarious.
The share of employed persons working part-time (less than 90%) increased from 27.4% in 1996 to 37.1% in 2021. Among men this share was only 18.2% (compared with 8.3% in 1996) while among women it was 58.6% (compared with 52.2% in 1996).
In 2021, 7.8% of employed persons had more than one job. This share has risen markedly in comparison with 1996 (4.8%). This percentage was higher among women (10.0%) than among men (5.7%).
Health is a major factor in determining access to the labour market and participation in social life. Social inequalities and disadvantages accumulate throughout a lifetime and have repercussions on both health and health behaviour such as take-up or non-take-up of services offered by the health system.
In all age groups and among both men and women, there is a clear variation in assessment of health by level of education. Persons who have not completed compulsory education are less likely to say that their general health is good or very good than those with a higher level of education (66.4% compared with 90.7%).
According to the Swiss Labour Force Survey 2020, 1.1 million people aged 15 and over living at home said that they had a long-standing health problem and were limited (severely or not severely) in activities of daily living. They were thus considered as having a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act. Among these, 293 000 had severe limitations (severely disabled) and 705 000 were aged between 15 and 64. In addition to these, there were also children under the age of 15 and people living in institutional homes or other collective households. Age, gender and education and training influenced the risk of disability: this risk increases with age, decreases with educational attainment and affects women slightly more than men.
The opportunity to reconcile work and family life is at the heart of decisions made by individuals in terms of choices concerning children, family life, the distribution of roles within the family, the division of paid and unpaid work and also work-time percentages.
In 2020, in households comprising a couple with children with two partners aged between 25 and 54 years, the most common model is that of the father working full-time and the mother working part-time, followed by the model in which the father works full-time and the mother is unemployed. Families in which both parents work part-time are less common. However, this model is twice as common when the youngest child in the household is under the age of 13 (9%) than when they are between 13 and 24 years (4%).
Having a roof over one’s head and feeling at home are key elements in fulfilling one’s fundamental needs. An acceptable quality of life largely depends on the possibility of affordable housing of an adequate size and satisfactory quality.
A tenth of persons with low income and of those aged under 65 living alone are rather dissatisfied with their housing conditions (values ranging from 0 to 5 on the measurement scale), compared with 5.1% of the population as a whole. Foreign nationals, persons without post-compulsory education as well as tenants are also more often dissatisfied with their housing than the average. |
Social links make it possible to deal with critical events in life. They support personal fulfilment and the need to feel appreciated and help to improve physical and mental health.
Within the resident population, 95.3% of people say they have family, friends or neighbours to turn to for moral, material or financial help in case of problems, while the others had no-one to turn to. The population groups lacking such support are mainly those on low incomes, foreign nationals and persons without post-compulsory education.
Apart from apparent and objective living conditions, subjective well-being is also of great importance. This involves understanding individuals’ own perspective on their existence.
The population aged 16 and over were very satisfied with the life they lead with an average value of 8.1 on a scale ranging from 0 (“not at all satisfied”) to 10 (“entirely satisfied”). However, 7.5% of persons said that were not very satisfied or were rather dissatisfied (values ranging from 0 to 5) and the share of persons in this category was particularly high amongst the persons under the age of 65 living alone and those with a low income. The share of persons who were not very satisfied with their life was also relatively high among persons without post-compulsory education.
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Federal Statistical Office Section Social WelfareEspace de l'Europe 10
CH-2010 Neuchâtel
Switzerland
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