Healthcare costs cause Swiss greatest concern

The cost of healthcare in Switzerland is giving many people high blood pressure © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Health and health insurance are the Swiss population’s biggest concerns, according to the Credit Suisse Worry Barometer. Environmental protection and pensions follow, while the war in Ukraine is no longer one of the main concerns.

In 2023 the research institute gfs.bern was again commissioned by Credit Suisse to survey the Swiss population on their concerns and identity characteristics. The main concerns were health issues and health insurance. Compared to the previous year, this topic has increased by 16 percentage points to 40%, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.

Environmental protection was thus replaced as the top concern of the previous year with 38%. In third place is the topic of old-age provision/retirement pensions with 32%.

+ Environment is top concern for Swiss this year

Just over a quarter of respondents cited relations with Europe and energy issues. According to the study, these two concerns occupy fourth and fifth place. Immigration (23%), inflation (22%), housing costs/rent prices (22%), refugees (20%) and social security (15%) were also among the top ten most frequently cited concerns of voters in Switzerland.

War in Ukraine no longer an issue

Overall, seven of the 20 largest expenditure items were related to the cost of living, standard of living and financial security. According to Credit Suisse, there is a shift in perspective away from the economy and labour towards individual household budget issues.

The war in Ukraine no longer made it into the top ten concerns of the population, falling to 11th place with 13%. According to Credit Suisse, concerns about unemployment have also fallen significantly, as in the previous year, and are no longer among the top 20 concerns of voters.

+ Should Swiss voters worry about foreign influence during elections?

Differences by generation and language region

The main cross-generational concerns are health and health insurance, the major bank wrote in its press release. Generation Z (18- to 28-year-olds) is the exception. They are most concerned about the environment and climate change. The younger the respondents, the less concerned they are about immigration and foreigners.

In the so-called baby boomer generation (59- to 77-year-olds), this concern is shared by 29%, compared to 20% each in generations X (44- to 58-year-olds) and Y (29- to 43-year-olds).

There are also differences between the language regions. According to Credit Suisse, the environment/climate change is still the top concern in French-speaking Switzerland, ahead of health/health insurance. At 22%, the war in Ukraine also concerns significantly more people in French-speaking Switzerland.

In addition to concerns about health insurance, foreign policy issues such as immigration, asylum and relations with the EU and Europe dominate in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino.

+ Is there an answer to Switzerland’s spiralling healthcare cost misery?

Critical of Europe

At 27%, trust in the EU is comparatively low, according to the worry barometer. However, 80% of voters still believe that stable relations with the EU are important. The preferred approach for shaping relations with the EU among respondents is a further development of the bilateral agreements.

The Swiss population’s trust in its own institutions is better. The government (72%; 4), the Federal Court (71%; 5) and the police (69%; 2) enjoy a high level of trust and have increased compared to the previous year. The political parties gained the most trust in the 2023 election year (37%; 13).

The gfs.bern institute surveyed 1,551 voters from all over Switzerland for the Worry Barometer in August and September. The statistical sampling error is 2.5 percentage points.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].