Abstract
The two countries we analyze in this study differ markedly with regard to the size of the public sector. Taxes collected in Switzerland amount to less than a third of GDP while Denmark, which approaches the 50 % mark, displays the highest tax revenue of all OECD countries (OECD 2011a). One would thus expect considerably less social welfare spending and more inequality in Switzerland than in Denmark. But, as this chapter will show, income inequality in Switzerland is not much higher than in Denmark and social expenditures in Switzerland are almost as high as in Denmark.
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Notes
- 1.
The data for the year 2007 is shown because this figure represents the share of social expenditures before the economic downturn due to the financial crises. In the years 2009–1011, the shares were increased in both countries due to a reduction of the GDP on the one hand and an increase of spending on unemployment at the other. Projections suggest that public social expenditures shares grew strongly in 2009 and stabilized thereafter.
- 2.
One exception are child support payments (alimonies), which are tax-deductible and which are not taxed with the receiver.
- 3.
These percentages have been calculated based on the calculation-tool for child care fees provided by the city of Bern (www.bern.ch).
- 4.
Only 52Â % of the hospitals, 30Â % of the social-medical institutions such as nursery-homes for frail elderly and 4Â % of the home-care providers are public institutions (Source: http://www.bfs.admin.ch).
- 5.
The tax wedge is defined as income tax on gross wage earnings plus the employee’s and the employer’s social security contributions, expressed as a percentage of the total labor costs of the earner. The given percentages are based on a single person without children earning 67 % of the average wage. (Source: EUROSTAT. Net earnings and tax rates)
- 6.
In 2010 32.3 % of the women in employment worked at an activity level form 50–90 %, and another 26 % worked at an activity level less than 50 %. More than half of all women therefore worked part time, compared to only 13.4 % of men. Data stem from the Swiss statistical office, accessed October 2011: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/20/05/blank/key/erwerbstaetigkeit/teilzeitarbeit.html
- 7.
Total work volume on health and social care (public and market) amounted to 133 h per inhabitant and year in Demark and to 98 h in Switzerland (work volume statistics for the year 2008). If public or market provision in Switzerland was ‘equal’ to the Danish level, this would thus require an additional 35 h of care per inhabitant and year.
- 8.
OECD Family database www.oecd.org/els/social/family/database, accessed October 2011.
- 9.
See Obinger et al. 2010, 86–88 for a review of the major policy developments in these welfare sectors.
- 10.
Bundesamt für Sozialversicherungen. 2011. Finanzperspektiven der AHV 2011: Grundlagen, neue Hypothesen und Auswirkungen. Faktenblatt, 11.5.2011.
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Christoffersen, H., Beyeler, M., Eichenberger, R., Nannestad, P., Paldam, M. (2014). Two Variants of the Welfare State. In: The Good Society. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37238-4_8
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