Switzerland,24.04.2015
Swiss population reaches 8,237,000
The latest figures from the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics show, that, as of the end of 2014, as many as 8,237,000 people were living in Switzerland, up by 100,000 on the year before. What is more, they also reveal the population is getting increasingly older; in fact 1,600 people were over 100 years old.
The rate of growth in the population in 2014 amounted to 1.2%, compared with 1.3% in 2013. This compares with between 0.6% and 0.8% in the years before 2007, when regulations on immigration were relaxed.
For the most part, this level of growth is due to immigration. The number of foreigners rose by 60,000, up by 3.1%, whereas the increase in the population of Swiss nationals was up by 36,200 or just 0.6%.
When looking into statistics relating to the population as a whole, foreigners who have been here for at least 12 months, all 1,998,000 of them, have been included. This means that 24.3% of the population is foreign, a new record.
It was also discovered that, with the average age of immigrants to the country being around 37 years old, these provide a source of relatively young people to the population. On average, Swiss people are 6 years older. And for every 100 foreigners of working age, 11 are over the age of 65, whereas this figure is three times more when it comes to Swiss people.
Expressed in a different way, every fifth woman and every sixth man in the country is over 64, and, as previously mentioned, the number of centenarians in the country now stands at 1,600, double that what it was in 2000. Of these, 1,300 are women, and 300 men.
In fact at 4.1 million, overall there are more women in Switzerland then men, who number 4 million. Only in the 0 - 24-year age range are there more males than females.
Figures also show that the population grew in all cantons of the country, with the greatest increases being in Fribourg (up by 1.9%), Geneva and Zug (up by 1.7%), Wallis (up by 1.6%) and in Zurich and Argovia, where the population was up by 1.4% in each case. The canton showing the least growth in population was that of Uri at 0.4%.