Married women in Switzerland earn quite a bit less than men; the Green Party is on a mission to ban five-cent plastic bags; and more news in our Thursday roundup.
Married women earn significantly less than men in Switzerland
The wages of married women in Switzerland, especially those with children, are significantly lower than married men’s.
The gap is, however, smaller among single people, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
In 2022, in both the private and public sectors, married women earned 16 percent less the men employed in the same positions.
The gender pay gap is particularly pronounced among married people with children: it rises to 21 percent, while single women without children earn ‘only’ 1.9 percent less than single men without children.
For single employees, this disparity is even lower — 1.3 percent.
The Greens want to ban five-cent plastic bags
Switzerland must play a pioneering role in the fight against plastic. At least, that’s the opinion of the Green Party, which believes this stance should involve an outright ban on the five-cent plastic bags sold by Coop and Migros supermarkets.
But not everyone in Switzerland is on board with this idea.
“This is yet another rigid and ideological ban,” said MP Christian Imark, chairperson of the Environment Committee.
He doesn’t see the problem with the five-cent bags.
We use them to carry groceries home, then reuse them for other purposes before disposing of them properly,” he explains.
However, Green deputy Marionna Schlatterm. who spearheaded the ban, doesn’t agree.
“Convenience shouldn’t come at the expense of the environment,” she said. “A reusable bag is just as practical and doesn’t generate unnecessary waste.”
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Swiss science reveals the secret of beer foam
Reaserchers from the Zurich Polytechnic Institute (ETH) have made a groundbreaking discovery.
After seven years of study, they finally solved the mystery of beer foam stability.
Concretely, they discovered that triple-fermented Belgian beers have the most stable foam.
The foam of bottom-fermented lager beers, on the other hand, is the one that breaks down the fastest.
For many beer aficionados, this study’s finding represents research money well spent, and we can say, ‘cheers to that.’
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These are Chair airlines’ new destinations
Switzerland’s smallest passenger airline is preparing to fly many new routes. and will be adding new aircraft next summer.
Chair also serves the Zurich-Marrakech route twice a week. During the summer months, there are also three weekly flights to Porto. A bold move: Chair competes with Edelweiss, Swiss, EasyJet, and TAP on these flights. This could lead to a price war for customers.
But other destinations are also planned: The Albanian capital Tirana will be served three times a week this summer. There will also be two weekly flights to Tuzla, Bosnia’s third-largest city, which will be served from the Zurich for the first time.
Chair will retain its existing destinations. Pristina in Kosovo will be served up to three times a day from Zurich, plus up to twice a day from Basel. In addition, Skopje and Ohrid (North Macedonia), Hurghada and Marsa Alam (Egypt), Palma de Mallorca (Spain), Larnaca (Cyprus), and the Greek destinations Heraklion, Kos, and Rhodes will continue to be included in the flight schedule.
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