Why a Swiss population cap baffles experts
Switzerland will vote June 14 on capping its population at 10 million until 2050.
That Switzerland is considering tightening its immigration policy was no surprise to demographic and economic experts. After all, that’s the trend among European countries, both within and outside the European Union.
Doing so by capping the country’s population at 10 million, which the Swiss will consider this summer, however, led to some questions.
“It is quite peculiar in the European demographic and political context,” said Marianna Griffini, assistant professor in international relations and anthropology on Northeastern University’s London campus. “I haven’t heard about specific numbers to cap the population,” Griffini said. “I’m quite baffled by the reasoning behind it and the fact that I think it could have quite serious economic consequences.”
Northeastern economist Mindy Marks agreed.
“It’s a weird way to go about anti-immigration policy,” said Marks, an associate professor of economics. “There are legitimate reasons societies might want to think about who they grant citizenship to, none of which are being addressed by this proposal.”
The proposal was launched by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party back in 2024, and its backers also want to limit options for asylum seekers, families of refugees and foreign nationals to permanently live in Switzerland if the population exceeds 9.5 million before 2050 (Switzerland passed 9 million in population in June 2024).
Crossing the 9.5-million threshold will also prompt the Swiss government to “renegotiate international agreements that drive population growth,” according to the proposal.
Should the 10-million threshold be crossed, however, the government would terminate an agreement with the European Union (EU) —which Switzerland is currently not a part of — to allow the free movement of people.
Switzerland will vote June 14 on the population cap proposal. If it succeeds, then the Swiss government — which, along with the country’s Parliament, has already voted against the proposal — will be forced to take steps to make the proposal’s goals a reality.
Griffini said that the proposal reflects the rise of “sovereignism” in Europe, which she described as “the belief that you try to protect your state.” This can manifest in promoting domestic markets – for example, the beIT or Made In Italy campaign – to increase sales as well as mitigate dependence on foreign industry, she said. But sovereignism can also be “tightly knit” with nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, Griffini said.
But why is this proposed in Switzerland?
Griffini and Marks both noted the relatively high percentage of foreign-born residents in the country, which is over 30%. Meanwhile, the Swiss fertility rate is below replacement rate, or the average number of children a woman must have to keep a population size constant from one generation to the next without migration. Replacement rate is typically 2.1 children per woman; the fertility rate in Switzerland is 1.4 children per woman, meaning that even if immigration remained flat, the proportion of foreign-born residents would grow, Marks noted.
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European countries like France and Griffini’s native Italy also face a “demographic winter” marked by low birthrates and an aging population. In contrast with Switzerland, however, these countries are trying to encourage population growth.
And while Italy, along with other countries along the Mediterranean, are main points of arrivals for migrants and refugees, Switzerland is not necessarily a country to which refugees are flocking.
“Switzerland is not liable for processing asylum application requests of refugees,” Griffini said. “That already places them in an advantageous position for controlling immigration compared to other European countries.”
A cap, however, is not nuanced immigration policy at all, Marks said.
She compared the proposal to the international campaigns during the last 20 years to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour. She called $10 an hour “a nice number” but a number with no “actual bearing” that was based on economic studies.
Similarly, a 10 million cap does not take into account demographic needs or trends, possible changes, and more.
“I have no idea what Switzerland’s going to look like in 2050,” Marks said. “To try to pass something now that binds you to do things in 20 years time in a totally different world, it just seems like a bad strategy.”
Experts said the Swiss measure could also backfire economically.
“The impact on the labour market would be drastic, because you will find yourself without a continuous supply of labor,” Griffini said.
Marks noted that an advantage of Europeans being able to move easily among different countries is that companies can have multiple international branches and occupations and licensing requirements can be standardized. “There are real economic benefits to having this free movement of labor,” Marks said,
For an aging society like Switzerland, this could be particularly acute, Marks added.
She also said that the proposal seems based on a false economic premise attributed to Thomas Malthus.
“There’s this belief that there’s a fixed number of things – a fixed number of resources, a fixed amount of infrastructure – and if we just plop in more people, we’re going to ruin it all,” Marks said.
“But the wrongness of that belief is that the pie isn’t fixed,” she said. “People are an asset. People innovate. We figure stuff out, we produce new things. We make the pie bigger.”
