The average age in this city is almost 60 – that’s how it is in your community

Switzerland is getting older – since 2010, the average age of the inhabitants of our country has increased by 3.26 percent to 43.21 years. This was the result of our calculations (see infobox at the end of the story) based on data from the Federal Statistical Office.

The aging of the population is clearly noticeable and visible, especially in remote mountain areas. Of the ten Swiss municipalities with the highest average age, eight are located in the mountainous areas of the canton of Ticino and two in the Calanca Valley south of the San Bernardino Pass.

At the top of the age ranking is the municipality of Crentino: 59.11 years is the average age of the only 36 inhabitants who live in the hamlet on the road to the Walser village Bosco Gurin. Like many other mountain villages, Crentino was also badly affected by the exodus of young people in the last century – in 1900 there were 209 people in the municipality, in 1950 there were 152.

Of the other nine municipalities with the highest average age, only Brissago has more than 1,000 inhabitants. Its picturesque location on Lake Maggiore is considered a pensioner's paradise, which is also reflected in its population. With 662 people, more than a third of the population belongs to the Ü65 category.

Ticino also dominates the age ranking of municipalities with more than 1500 inhabitants. The phalanx is only broken by the Bernese communities of Sigriswil and Oberhofen on the north shore of Lake Thun and the two mountain communities Surses and Lumnezia in Graubünden.

But Switzerland is not aging everywhere: especially in the urban centers and in the agglomeration, the average age has risen only slightly since 2010 or, as in the major cities of Zurich, Basel and Bern, has even fallen. There are several reasons for the latter: on the one hand good jobs attract many young people and even make expensive housing affordable for this population group, on the other hand the birth rate in the cities has increased again in recent years.

It is also striking that the youngest communities are located almost exclusively in western Switzerland. Vaud, Geneva and Friborg are by far the youngest cantons in the country. In rural areas, home ownership is still affordable with good infrastructure and distances to urban centers are short. Especially young families settle there.

As in German-speaking Switzerland, the agglomeration and the cities are attracting more and more young people. Chavannes-près-Renens in the north of the university campus in Lausanne, for example: With an average age of 35.90, the community is the youngest in Switzerland with more than 1,500 inhabitants.

In 2019, the Vortex was created there for the Youth Olympic Games. The 27-metre-high ring-shaped structure housed some 900 athletes during the major sporting event and now serves as a dormitory for some 1000 students.