Financial confidence decreases with age in Switzerland

How confident are the Swiss about their finances? A representative study by Swiss Life presented today gives answers to this question - based on the example of the six Swiss financial types.

Taking control of your own life and structuring it in a self-determined way: that constitutes a good life for the great majority of Swiss. A self-determined life depends fundamentally on the available finances. Swiss Life wanted to know in that context how confident people are about their personal financial future - as well as their past and current situation. Six financial types emerged with strongly differing views on their own financial situation.

Climbers and descenders: The six Swiss financial types

It is pleasing that Switzerland is a country of climbers - at least in terms of their financial confidence: at 25 percent the climber financial type is the most common. They are decidedly optimistic about the future, savers and planners who may not consider their past personal financial situation to have been particularly rosy, but are very positive about the future. More than two-thirds of climbers believe their standard of living will improve significantly in ten years (Swiss average: 37 percent). At the other end of the confidence scale is the descender financial type, accounting for 12 percent of the Swiss population. Among this group, 76 percent believe their standard of living will worsen considerably over the next ten years (Swiss average: 27 percent).

Major differences between the individual financial types

A comparison of the six financial types in Switzerland by different criteria including age, region or education reveals significant differences. As a general rule: the older the people surveyed, the more they see themselves as descenders. The number of descenders increases significantly from the age of 60. 43 percent of 18-29 year olds consider themselves climbers, compared to just 8 percent of the over-60 age group. There is also sharp polarisation among the older demographic: just under a third of people over the age of 60 see themselves as financial descenders, whereas a third of the same age group are optimistic about their financial prospects.

Many people in Ticino consider themselves to be in a financial "valley" - and expect a longer life

The study also provides surprising results by regional comparison. While a disproportionately large share of people in Ticino feel they are lagging financially and people in Western Switzerland tend to feel governed by forces outside their control, the German-speaking Swiss are looking forward most to retirement. The financial type "in the valley", i.e. people who believe they are at their financial nadir, is most common in Ticino with 25 percent (German-speaking Switzerland: 18 percent; Western Switzerland: 22 percent), while just under one in three people living in Western Switzerland think they have little influence over their life and future (German-speaking Swiss: one in five; people in Ticino: just under one in four). On the other hand, the Ticinese are positive about life expectancy: they expect to live longest (83.7 years) among all the Swiss (German-speaking Swiss: 81.9 years; French-speaking Swiss: 79.8 years). However, a different picture emerges when preparing for old age: one in five German-speaking Swiss is looking forward to ageing. The comparable figure in Western Switzerland and Ticino is not even one in ten.

Further information on the study and download: www.swisslife.ch/finanztypen




About the study

ValueQuest was commissioned by Swiss Life in 2017 to survey a total of 1229 people between the ages of 18 and 75 from all over Switzerland by means of a structured online questionnaire. The participants are representative of the entire Swiss population in terms of age and gender.

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