Welfare state is too generous for most Swiss

Most Swiss want reductions in social assistance Keystone

The Swiss are strongly in favour of scaling back social welfare benefits and giving more money to parents, if a nationwide online survey is to be believed.

The second “Swiss Perspective” online survey was conducted between October and December last year and is intended to involve the populace more closely in the political process.

The online survey contained 30 questions on the political development of the country. In all there were 16,800 responses from across Switzerland.

Respondents could give their opinion in German, French and Italian on topics such as equal rights, regional politics, family politics, economic growth and poverty.

The survey’s results, published on Tuesday, were unambiguous in the respondents’ desire for a scaling back of social welfare benefits.

Ninety-six per cent of those who replied would like reductions in guaranteed social assistance. And nine per cent thought social welfare benefits should be cut completely.

Abuse of social welfare was also clearly on the minds of respondents: 80 per cent wanted stronger controls to prevent people taking advantage of the system, and 68 per cent approved of community service for the unemployed.

Family dissatisfaction

But the findings did not point to a total rejection of social policies; in other areas respondents wanted more support from the state.

Almost three-quarters wanted child benefit to be uniform nationwide and every second person wanted health insurance premiums to be means-tested.

Satisfaction with current family policies is in general not very high – 58 per cent said they were unsatisfied, 61 per cent thought families receive too little support from the state.

On equality issues, the Swiss see no need for quotas for women parliamentarians in the House of Representatives. But half of respondents were in favour of four weeks’ paternity leave for fathers.

The survey also included questions on the environment. Asked whether more support should be given over the next two years to environmental protection or economic growth, 55 per cent came out in favour of the environment.

Accuracy doubts

Although Swiss Perspective said the survey has a representational accuracy of +/- 3 per cent, several experts have cast doubts on the reliability of the results.

“An online survey is not representative,” said Matthias Kappeler, head of the market research institute Isopublic. “And for that reason it is not the right means for a nationwide poll.”

Kappeler said the main problem is that not everyone has access to the internet, therefore a whole group of people are basically disenfranchised.

In addition, young people – and “progressive thinkers” – are more likely to have access to the internet.

“These factors have an enormous influence on the how meaningful the results are.”

swissinfo with agencies

In brief

Swiss Perspective is organised by Vernunft Schweiz or Swiss Sense, a politically neutral and independent association that provides facts and background information on Swiss economic policy.

The group hopes that the results of the survey will contribute to a vision of Switzerland that can be developed and worked towards over the next decade.

Vernunft Schweiz was founded in 2003 and the first “Swiss Perspective” survey was carried out in autumn 2004.

Key facts

Some 16,800 people from across Switzerland answered 30 questions on the political development of the country.
96% of those who replied would like reductions in guaranteed social assistance. 9% thought social welfare benefits should be cut completely.
The meaningfulness of online surveys has been questioned by some experts.