The statistics on childcare in Switzerland are regularly updated and published in German, French, and Italian on the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (Bundesambt für Statistik; BFS) website. Are you interested in statistics, but find them hard to understand? We have translated and simplified the official BFS graphs based on 2022 data for you.
The first graph below shows how many children aged 0 to 12 years are enrolled in one or more forms of childcare.
(Source original graph in German: bfs.admin.ch )
This graph shows that:
- Around 62% of children under 13 years old are enrolled in external childcare (familienergänzendeKinderbetreuung).
- Just over one third of Swiss children (36%) attend a daycare center (Kita — Kindertagesstätte — Krippe) or before-/after-school facility (schulergänzende Betreuungseinrichtung).
- Around 28% of children under 13 years old are looked after by their grandparents.
- Around 10% of children between 4-12 years old are looked after by caregivers other than parents or grandparents.
- 6.7% of children between 0-3 years old and 4.6% of children between 4-12 years old visit a daycare family.
- Around 5% of children in Switzerland have a nanny, au pair, or daytime babysitter.
Statistics on childcare in Switzerland
The next graph is an income-based visualization of the number of children between 0-12 years old enrolled in one or more forms of childcare, as well as the number of children enrolled in a daycare center (Kita — Kindertagesstätte — Krippe) or before-/after-school care program (schulergänzende Betreuungseinrichtung).
This graph is an English translation of the official BFS graph based on data from 2022.
(Source original graph in German: bfs.admin.ch )
It clearly shows that households with a higher disposable income make more use of childcare services, with 80.1% of children from households in the fifth income quintile enrolled in a form of childcare.
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Read more: The Montessori Kindergarten Curriculum
