Distribution of annual equivalised disposable income

Relevance/Result

Recommended by the EU, this indicator provides information on the median level and the differences in financial resources between the various population groups. Low income has an impact on housing conditions, health, education, material deprivation, social participation, etc. Equivalised disposable income enables comparison of financial resources with regard to the income of people living in households of different sizes.

In 2019, the annual median equivalised disposable income of the population with a migration background was significantly lower than that of the population without a migration background (13% lower for people with a migration background from the first generation and 6% lower for those from the second or subsequent generations).

Trends over time

During the period from 2014 to 2019, the annual median equivalised disposable income of the resident population aged 16 and over did not change significantly in the three population groups observed. The differences observed between the groups since 2014 were maintained.

Major region

In almost every major region, people without a migration background have a significantly higher median equivalised disposable income than persons without a migration background with the exception of Eastern Switzerland and Ticino.

Definitions
Methodologies

Annual equivalised disposable income is calculated from the disposable income of each household divided by the number of persons it comprises. Disposable income is calculated by deducting the compulsory expenditure from annual gross income (i.e. social security contributions, taxes, basic health insurance premiums, alimony paid and other maintenance payments paid to other households). In order to take into account economies of scale (a family of four persons does not have to spend four times as much as a single person to ensure the same standard of living), a weight of 1 is assigned to the oldest person in the household, a weight of 0.5 to all other persons aged 14 and above and a weight of 0.3 to each child aged under 14 (modified OECD scale). This means that the equivalised disposable income is an indicator of the quality of life in monetary terms that makes it possible to compare the situation of people living in different types of household.

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.

The median divides the total of the values observed (and ranked according to size) into two equal halves: one half represents the 50% below the median, the other the 50% above it. Deciles are values that divide all observations, ranked by size, into ten equal parts: 10% of observations lie below the 1st decile, 10% are above the 9th decile.

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.