6.7 percent of people from third countries receive social assistance
Published: Wednesday, Oct 30th 2024, 13:40
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In Switzerland, 6.7% of the 669,100 people from third countries received social assistance in 2022. This means that the social assistance rate for these people was almost three times as high as for people from EU/EFTA countries.
44,900 people from third countries received social assistance in 2022, as reported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SEM) on Wednesday. This results in a social assistance rate of 6.7 percent. This figure has fallen slightly by 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous year. From 2015 to 2017, it was still around 8.5 percent.
However, the social assistance rate of people from third countries is still significantly higher than that of people from EU/EFTA countries living in Switzerland (2.3%). The rate for Swiss nationals is 1.9 percent.
Almost half from Europe
Most of the people from third countries came from European countries that do not belong to the EU or EFTA (42.8 percent), followed by people from Africa (26.2 percent), Asia (19.9 percent) and America (10.8 percent). 56 percent of them had a settlement permit and 42.8 percent had a residence permit.
28.1 percent were couples with one or more children, 27.3 percent single parents, 25.8 percent living alone, 9.1 percent couples and 9.2 percent not living alone.
Hardly any social assistance for migrant workers
Third-country nationals who had entered Switzerland for "employment or education purposes" since 2008 were almost never dependent on social welfare support in 2022 (0.2 percent).
In contrast, the rate for people who came as part of a family reunion was 5.3%. Overall, women have a higher risk of social assistance (5.7 percent) than men (4.5 percent), especially those up to the age of 54.
A previous asylum background can also have an influence on being dependent on social welfare: the social welfare rate for third-country nationals without an asylum background was 5.6 percent, compared to 18.4 percent for people with an asylum background.
©Keystone/SDA
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