Together, but is there a sense of community?
Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle
Two-thirds of Swiss people feel that cohesion in the country is “rather weak”, according to a study by the Sotomo research institute. Some 83% of respondents even felt that the sense of community was declining.
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However, around 96% of the study participants agreed that cohesion is an “indispensable value”, the company that commissioned the study, the Feldschlösschen brewery, said in a statement on Sunday. However, the understanding of this value differs depending on political views, age and income.
There is a strong left-right divide in the understanding of good cohesion: while people on the left focus on the acceptance of diversity, those on the right are concerned with common identification as a nation. Low-income study participants rated cohesion far worse than richer people. Furthermore, older people viewed the sense of community with a certain disillusionment, while younger people still tended to believe in cohesion.
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However, there was a remarkable consensus between left and right on controversial issues: 93% of respondents felt that immigration was a divisive issue. The attitude towards Europe ranked second with 76%.
However, 71% of respondents said that Switzerland’s direct democracy was the most effective way of promoting social cohesion. According to Sotomo, it gives the population a sense of self-empowerment.
The study said feelings of community are increasingly taking place in private. The majority of respondents experience it at home, with family and friends. The study considers meeting places to be important for better cohesion.
According to the press release, this is the first study of its kind in Switzerland. A total of 2,784 people were questioned. The results are representative of the population aged 18 and over.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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