Swiss seeking personal happiness in 2016
The Swiss feel optimistic about 2016 when it comes to their personal lives, despite lower-than-average confidence in politics, business, the environment and society, according to an annual survey released on Monday.
The almost 9,500 people surveyed in Switzerland said that happiness in their marriages, families and personal relationships was more important than success, money or the euro crisis.
Increasingly, respondents see themselves as responsible for achieving their expectations, and expect less from representatives of science and business, the survey by swissfutureExternal link found.
According to the survey, immigrants tend to be perceived as a threat in terms of the labour market and the healthcare and social systems, and society is polarised when it comes to the cultural consequences of immigration. Still a majority of people surveyed considered immigrants in general as positive for the economy.
The growing hope for more security in their own environment seems to be a response to the growing threat of terrorism, said the survey authors.
swissfuture, the Swiss Society for future studies, was founded in 1970 and has conducted the Hope Barometer annually since 2009.
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