To coincide with International Women’s Day on 8 March, The Economist publishes an annual study on the best places to be a working woman across the OECD. This year, Switzerland is ranked 26th out of 29 nations, the same position as last year. Only Japan, Turkey and South Korea rank lower.
The main reason behind Switzerland’s poor rank is likely well known to most families where both mum and dad work: the high cost childcare.
Switzerland has the highest childcare costs in the OECD. The average cost across the OECD is 14% of the average wage. In Switzerland the average is 49% of the average wage. Nurseries are expensive and pay for experienced nannies can range from around CHF 40,000 to CHF 80,000 a year depending on location. Nannies cost more in Zurich, Basel and Geneva than they do in London and New York. Although not covered by The Economist study, another childcare challenge in Switzerland is schools typically closing for lunch. This leaves families with a lunchtime care gap.
In addition, Switzerland offers little parental leave to young parents. New mothers get 7.8 weeks and new fathers get 1.1 weeks. The OECD averages are 31.6 and 8 weeks.
Switzerland, with a gap of -4.8 points compared to an OECD average of +8 points in favour of women, scores relatively poorly when comparing male and female graduate rates. Although, the widespread gap in favour of women – an OECD average of +8, which goes as high as +20 in Iceland – begs the question of whether some education systems might now be failing men?
Switzerland’s score on education is also somewhat misleading. The Economist looks at the difference in the number of male and female graduates between the ages of 25 and 64. The drag of history pulls Switzerland down on this measure – big differences at the older end of this age range swamp the small and sometimes inverse differences at the younger end. And given the younger end reflects the recent past it would be more meaningful to focus on this as a gauge of where Switzerland currently stands. Data from 2023 illustrate the impact of age on the results. Only 39% of doctors in Switzerland 45 years old and over were women, an imbalance that swings the other way among younger doctors – 61% of doctors under 45 are women. Another measure of the education gap used by The Economist in the study largely avoids this problem. It looks at the numbers of men and women taking the GMAT, a test required to apply to business school. Here it looks at only the last 10 years. On this measure Switzerland is ahead with 37.7% women versus an OECD average of 35.6%.
Finally, in business and politics women in Switzerland are doing relatively well with above average board representation (34.4% versus 32.9%) and number of seats in parliament (38.5% versus 34.1%). Although they trail a bit on managerial positions (32.4% versus an OECD average of 34.0%).
More on this:
The Economist report (in English)
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.