Whether it’s finances, living conditions or fitting in to society, new data shows that life in Switzerland is different for foreigners than for Swiss nationals.
The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) has published new data across several aspects of healthcare, finances and living conditions – some of the key indicators it analyses to determine how integrated Switzerland is as a country.
Finances
People who have a migrant background are more likely to be exposed to financial difficulties than Swiss nationals, the data showed.
In 2023, for instance, their median annual disposable income was nearly 5,000 francs lower than that of people without a migrant background.
This difference has a large impact on foreigners’ everyday finances, with 15.1 percent of those with a migrant background struggling to make ends meet compared with just 5.7 percent of Swiss nationals.
But there is some good news: the gap between the two groups is gradually narrowing, particularly with regard to the poverty rate: it fell from 11.4 percent in 2021 to 9.1 percent in 2023 for foreigners, the FSO reported.
It is now approaching the rate for the population without a migrant background, which stood at 7.8 percent in 2023.
However, the gap between the two groups is still particularly pronounced in Ticino, where the poverty rate is more than four times as high in those with a migrant background compared to those without.
Foreigners are also more likely to receive state social benefits, irrespective of their place of birth, the FSO said.
Living conditions
It’s not great news for foreigners in terms of their living conditions, either. A higher number (21.1 percent) live in neighbourhoods deemed to be noisy compared to Swiss nationals (15.1 percent).
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This is particularly true in the Espace Mitteland and Ticino regions.
Foreigners also tended to have smaller living spaces than those without a migrant background.
Single-person Swiss households, for example, had 1.2 as many square metres average living space than a single-person foreign national. The figure rose to 1.4 for households with two or more occupants.
And while people’s average living space has increased over time, this isn’t true for single-person migrant households, who had less available room in 2023.
Social cohesion
Depressingly, those with a migrant background were almost three times as likely to have experienced racial discrimination.
In 2024, as many as 27.2 percent of foreigners – more than 1 in 4 people – were treated unfairly or intolerantly due to their nationality, religion, ethnic origin or skin colour compared to 9.4 percent of those without a migrant background.
More foreigners than Swiss nationals experienced racism across all of Switzerland’s language regions, but the biggest difference between the treatment of the two groups was found in the German- and Romansh-speaking parts of the country, according to the FSO.
Discrimination increased across both groups from 2016 to 2020 but has stabilised since 2020.
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Non-Swiss nationals are less able to ask others for (financial, material or emotional) support when needed, too.
The number of non-Swiss nationals who feel able to ask others for help has risen in the last few years, climbing to 93 percent in 2023, with first-generation migrants seeing a particularly large increase.
The proportion of those without a migrant background who had people to turn to was 97.7 percent.
There are regional differences, too, with the widest gap between the two groups seen in Ticino.
Unsurprisingly, foreigners were found to be more open to diversity (78 percent) – ie people who are perceived as different due to religion, skin colour or lifestyle – than those without a migrant background (65.9 percent).
However, the gap between the two groups has narrowed since 2022 as while both groups have become less accepting, the decrease has been much more marked for those with a migrant background.
Tolerance levels vary across the country, too, with those without a migrant background living in German-Romansh and Italian-speaking Switzerland found to be “significantly less open to diversity in everyday life” than in French-speaking parts of the country.
Civic life
Interestingly, there is very little difference between the two groups in the level of confidence they have in the police and the political system.
Fifty-eight percent of foreigners had confidence in Swiss institutions in 2023 compared with 51.7 percent of those without a migrant background.
The level of confidence among all groups has been steadily increasing since 2014.
Family and health
Households with a migrant background are much more likely to put their children in nurseries and after-school facilities and much less likely to get help with care from grandparents, most probably because the latter often live in another country.
A total of 50.6 of migrant households used nurseries and after-school facilities in 2023 compared with 36.8 percent of non-migrant households.
Foreigners are also nearly three times more likely to go without dental care because they can’t afford it than Swiss nationals.
In 2022, 7.4 percent of those with a migrant background skipped going to the dentist – a sharp increase on the 4.2 percent who didn’t seek dental care in 2015.
