Where do the boomers live and where are most of the millennials? The big community overview

You are looking for meaningful work and want to be paid well for it. According to surveys, this is how ‘Generation Z’ is catching on, that is, young people born between 1997 and 2012. Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964), on the other hand, are said to be particularly hardworking and loyal to their employers. But how are the different generations divided in Switzerland?

The Swiss population is currently dominated by three groups of almost equal size: the Millennials, Generation X and the Baby Boomers. They each make up about a fifth of the population.

The largest generation in the country Generation X (42 to 57 year olds) is also leading in most communities, as shown by an analysis of population data from the Federal Statistical Office: In about 45 percent of communities, most residents belong to Generation communities are located in the vicinity of larger cities.

The Millennials Although 26- to 41-year-olds are almost as numerous as Generation X, they are only the largest generation in 15 percent of all communities. This is because they are mainly concentrated in cities, suburban communities and tourist hotspots such as Andermatt or Zermatt.

Three out of ten Millennials live in one of the six major cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants: Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Bern and Winterthur. The generation in the middle of working life mainly lives where there are the most jobs and where the range of consumers and entertainment is greatest.

Outside the cities, especially around the Alpine belt, they dominate Baby boomers (58 to 76 years). The post-war baby boom generation is the largest group in approximately 40 percent of communities.

The fact that baby boomers are so strongly represented in rural areas is partly because many of them have already retired and are therefore no longer dependent on proximity to work. On the other hand, the dream of a small house in the countryside was still relatively realistic for this generation: more than 40 percent of all houses in Switzerland belong to baby boomers, Credit Suisse noted in a 2022 real estate report.

The aspirant Generation Z (12 to 25 year olds) already form the largest generation in ten communities. With the exception of the Schwyzer mountain community of Riemenstalden, these are all located in French-speaking Switzerland. Four municipalities are suburbs of Lausanne, which can partly be explained by the high student density in the city: there is one student for every four inhabitants.

A turning point is coming in the labor market: Generation Z is expected to overtake the baby boom generation in numbers next year, as data from the Federal Bureau of Statistics shows.

Even though more than half of baby boomers have already reached legal retirement age, the age group with the highest birth rates is still in sight. About 15 percent of the workforce will be eliminated over the next seven years as the youngest baby boomers reach normal retirement age.

There are already considerably more people retiring than young people entering the labor market. By 2030, the skilled labor shortage will increase dramatically again.

However, depending on the region, the ‘retired generation’ of baby boomers is growing at different rates, as labor market data from the Federal Bureau of Statistics shows. In the coming years there will be a particularly large number of retirees in the Graubünden region of Albula, around Stans, Appenzell and around the Jura town of Porrentruy. In all these regions, baby boomers still make up a quarter of the workforce.

On the other hand, the share of working baby boomers in French-speaking Switzerland is above average. The city of Zurich has the fewest baby boomers among its employees, at about 13 percent.

The retirement of baby boomers will not only leave a huge gap in the labor market, but will also likely affect the geographic distribution of the generations: many baby boomers who moved to rural areas 30 years ago are now moving back to cities, wrote the chief economist of the think tank, Avenir Suisse, Patrick Schellenberger in a special issue of the magazine “Schweizer Monat”.

The young, wealthy retirees are looking for consumption, infrastructure, entertainment and, above all, lots of social contacts. By moving to the city, they will displace young workers, further increasing the housing shortage and rents, the economist expects. However, this development will only proceed slowly due to the well-developed tenant protection.

Population data from the past ten years does not (yet) show that baby boomers are returning to the big cities. The share of baby boomers has increased most in Lugano and Biel, around 1.5 percent. In Zurich, on the other hand, the generation has shrunk slightly. Whether this will change will become clear in the coming years, as the retiree generation grows faster than ever before.