In the European country of Switzerland, the majority of children now come from a foreign background. This is evidence of the high amount of immigration that has been going on, as well as immigrant groups having substantially higher birthrates than the native Swiss population. This is notable, because Switzerland is considered a high standard of living country, which traditionally had a larger percentage of its total population in the middle class than other European countries. Between 2019 and 2021, six out of ten children under the age of six were living in a household in which at least one parent was born abroad or is a foreign national. 58% of children in this age group have foreign roots, according to an assessment by the Federal Statistical Office published on Sunday in the SonntagsZeitung. In the seven to 15 age group, the proportion of children with an immigrant background was 56%. Ten years earlier, the figures were 54% and 50% respectively. "We prefer not to publicise these figures for fear of resistance," says Ganga Jey Aratnam, a researcher into migration, in the newspaper. "But it is important to know what Switzerland will look like in the future.” In the city of Zurich 70% of 15-60 year-olds already have roots abroad. Majority of children under six in Switzerland have foreign roots, swissinfo.ch , January 14, 2024
These are only the statistics from 2013, but they might help give some idea of the relative proportion of places immigrants to Switzerland are coming from. Out of the 1,937,447 permanent foreign residents (which represented 23.8% of the country's total population), 292,291 were from Germany, 110,103 were from France, 298,875 were from Italy, 39,494 from Austria. That adds up to 740,763 , which is only 38.2%. 40,898 (2.1%) were from the United Kingdom. (source: Ständige ausländische Wohnbevölkerung nach Staatsangehörigkeit, am Ende des Jahres Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 6 October 2014 Statistics table can be seen in the Wikipedia article "Immigration to Switzerland", under "Permanent residents by nationality" ) Most of the people who come to Switzerland from Germany, France, and Italy are just coming there to work, and I would imagine few of them start families. We all know the birthrates of middle class professionals in Germany, France, and Italy are low, so I'd imagine many of those who move to Switzerland from those particular countries do not have many children, if they have children at all. In my experience, those who go to another higher income country are usually focused very intently on working and work longer hours than usual. Because it's a high-income country, Switzerland also has a very high cost of living, so it's not a place people from other European countries move to to relax.
Swiss Populists Secure New Migration Referendum in Record Time Party representative and member of the Swiss National Assembly Thomas Matter was quick to trumpet his party’s success gathering 110,000 signatures in record time -- almost a year ahead of the final deadline to do so. The petition advocates for a new clause to be inserted into the Swiss constitution calling for "sustainable population development" and increased powers for authorities to clamp down on asylum claims should Switzerland cross the nine-and-a-half million mark. Swiss Populists Secure New Migration Referendum in Record Time, The European Conservative, Thomas O'Reilly, February 19, 2024
