Childcare in Switzerland is a private matter and expensive. This has clear economic and social repercussions. Parliament is now taking action to lend parents a hand – but it will cost a lot of money.
Childcare in Switzerland is a private matter and expensive. This has clear economic and social repercussions. Parliament is now taking action to lend parents a hand – but it will cost a lot of money.
24 comments
I’m wondering how taking the stress off the shoulders of parents could be benefitting society in the long run. 🤷😇 Does that mean that the parents have more time for their children? Will that improve the emotional wellbeing of the next generation (and their parents)? As a parent the answer is **>!yes!<**!
Hey look, they’ve outlined why I’m not a gainfully employed immigrant or receptive to the idea of a second child. Even the grandparents are already claimed by another family member.
Yep. My wife works 80% so that we “only” have to pay for 4 days of kita (2100chf). We discussed having another child but decided we couldn’t afford it. She would have to quit her job to take care of the kids full time alone.
Making childcare 20% cheaper, if that works, will be nice… But does that move the needle for many families?
Looking forward for it.
Kita 3 days a week => 1.6k. Good luck having two kids.
Can anyone explain me if childcare is basically a privatized business, how come there are huge differences in costs between cantons? I live between the Vaud and vallais border and basically for 4 days a week in vaud I pay around 1600 CHF while the same number of days in vallais would be around half of that?
Three children. It’s brutal. Sometimes we have to dip into savings.
The obvious choice is for someone to leave the labour market but good luck coming back at an equivalent position.
20% isn’t enough, instead of paying 2.7k per month – I’ll pay 2.1k per month.
Still doesn’t make me want to have more than one kid…
Why don’t they just do what Sweden does?
Kita 5 days per week = 3000 chf. It’s like a rent for another apartment. Not planning a 2nd one, too expensive.
If school and university can be so affordable in CH why can’t preschool be too?
Surely it would be better for The Economy to have more parents working more of the time?
the taxation scheme in CH is very different than other european countries. do you want to pay 10-20% more tax so families with kids can keep working at a regular pace? Switzerland is (imo) a very capitalistic country, restructuring towards a more social system requires many changes on all levels and more governmental control (you cant really have one without the other).
as with other setups, the government could run this through the companies employing the parents
I have a daughter and we closed the factory. A colleague who works with me has 5 kids. I’m still trying to figure how he manages.
This is literally a no-brainer. The state should heavily subsidise daycare/childcare on par with Germany and base it on parents/household income as they do there. This will allow women to work full time plus encourage people to have more children.
You have nationalist and right-wing parties like the SVP complaining about immigrants but they would rather subsidise farmers than women. Who do they think will wipe their arse when they get old and end up in an old people’s home? With the current low birth rate among Swiss couples, it certainly won’t be a Swiss citizen!
2 kids, 1 only afternoons, 1 all day, 1200 chf/month…. its draining my account….
I hope I can handle one more year, until both of the kids have school all day.
It was perfect before, i had an auntie that took very well care of them, then sone stupid bitch ass neighbour went to the police saying she was running an illegal daycare.
Since we are Portuguese she did not had any chance of fighting it and had to go back to Portugal…
I’m undecided on this topic. On one hand all of my friends have kids and the mother always work max 80%. Having childcare more accessible would benefit them greatly.
On the other hand, I’m always wondering why you want kids enough to have them but not enough to have one of the 2 parent to take care of them?
And there’s the question of who’s going to pay for that, if we decide we want to subsidize it more. I mean, nobody wants to taxe big business more. Nobody wants to taxe rich folks more. Nobody wants to pay more to compensate for carbon footprint but we collectively will pay for others childs?
I have a hard time seeing this being passed. But hey, maybe I’m missing something on the picture.
>but it will cost a lot of money.
[
**Und damit die Preise für die Krippenplätze bezahlbar bleiben, brauche es eine Milliarde Franken zusätzlich vom Staat.**](https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/zu-wenig-betreuerinnen-kantoenligeist-gefaehrdet-qualitaet-von-kindertagesstaetten)
Great, even more government involvement and financing industries that can’t sustain themselves.
Children should grow up with their parents around, working more than 100% (both combined) isn’t natural. Nothing against a fair 50/50 split though.
No no no. Do seperate tax returns for married couples instead.
If your labour is vaguely useful childcare isn’t that expensive here.
Meanwhile, conservatives in the US are bringing back childlabor.
Anytime I’ve mentioned this here people come jumping down my throat. Now that the numbers are proven, and the issue being looked at at government level, everyone seems to be getting in line in agreement. Hilarious.
What this article fails to mention is that a lot of these families would prefer for one of them to stay home period and not have to go back to work. But neither are affordable and marginal savings rate is dangerous, and not advisable from anyone keen on sound finances.
1. Spouse stays home with kids permanently means primary bread winner needs upwards of 160k to make ends meet for entire family
2. Both go back to work means total income likely needs to be over 160k as well as you are now taxed with both salaries instead of one and in addition need to pay for childcare and transportation for one more persons commute
State pays for it? It is tax money so in the end we still pay for it for life. And probably at higher cost since the state won’t shop around…
I do not see an easy solution to this.
First impact after arriving in Switzerland after working in Austria and Italy: my new boss telling me Switzerland has expensive childcare cause my wife shouldn’t work to look after the kids, only poor immigrants need KiTas and we should avoid them altogether… It is expected that I, that man, am available to work without having to care for the children, that’s “flexibility”.
Hey, welcome!