Switzerland - Poverty and wealth

The Swiss traditionally enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world although they also have an exceptionally high cost of living. Although there are many large private fortunes of local and foreign persons, Switzerland's Gini index score (which measures economic equality, with 0 standing for perfect equality and 100 for perfect inequality) of 33.1 is quite a bit lower than that of the United States (40.8) or the United Kingdom (36.1). The structure of consumption and the quality of life are also among the world's most advanced, according to UN studies. Switzerland's government is working hard to improve its environmental policies and to fight organized crime, reducing the impact of these 2 threats to modern life everywhere in the world.

But there is also some growing sense of insecurity in Switzerland, manifesting itself in a rising concern about immigration, unemployment, and the higher levels of foreign ownership of Swiss property and firms, although such concerns are largely overstated. An in other

Distribution of Income or Consumption by Percentage Share: Switzerland
Lowest 10%	2.6
Lowest 20%	6.9
Second 20%	12.7
Third 20%	17.3
Fourth 20%	22.9
Highest 20%	40.3
Highest 10%	25.2
Survey year: 1992
Note: This information refers to income shares by percentiles of the population and is ranked by per capita income.
SOURCE: 2000 World Development Indicators [CD-ROM].

affluent countries in which unemployment is very low (less than 2 percent), the perception of job insecurity is much greater than unemployment itself. The average period employees remain in a job hasn't changed since 1980, and moreover, labor shortages, rather than high unemployment, are likely to be more prevalent in Switzerland, at least over the next 5 years. Likewise, the concern about the influx of refugees is grossly exaggerated. Eastern European countries remain the main source of potential refugees, but as they narrow the GDP per head gap with western Europe, the already quite low levels of migration are likely to be decreased further. The political processes in the former Yugoslavia after the toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in late 2000 may also contribute to a more stable condition and less immigrants from the Balkans region.

Recent takeovers of Swiss firms by large foreign companies have also led to misplaced concerns. As firms denationalize, becoming increasingly international and global in character, the competitiveness of the business environment as a location for firms becomes more important. With Switzerland's highly educated workforce and other positive assets, the result may rather be a long period of high value industrial development and there is little reason to believe that foreign ownership will lead

Household Consumption in PPP Terms
Country	All Food	Clothing and footwear	Fuel and power a	Health care b	Education b	Transport & Communications	Other
Switzerland	19	6	9	3	18	8	36
United States	13	9	9	4	6	8	51
Germany	14	6	7	2	10	7	53
Luxembourg	17	8	9	3	7	5	52
Data represent percentage of consumption in PPP terms.
a Excludes energy used for transport.
b Includes government and private expenditures.
SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000.

to money flight from the country. If feelings of economic insecurity grow, there may be further calls for protection for Swiss industry in order to preserve domestic employment. Also, there may almost certainly be further tightening of legislation to curb immigration, with the potential for a backlash against government's plans to integrate the Swiss and EU labor markets.