Periurbanisation and the changing geography of mortality in Switzerland since 1966

[VIDEO PUBLIQUE – Visible pour toutes et tous]

Abstract

In high-income countries, internal migration redistributed populations from congested city centers into the sparsely populated outskirts of agglomerations, raising challenges to population and environmental health. 

In this presentation, I investigate whether this periurbanisation came to a halt – expecting a decline in internal migration and a renewed residential attractiveness of city centers (i.e. re-urbanisation) – and how it has shaped the urban gradient in mortality since the 1960s in Switzerland.

Data from censuses, registers and surveys reveal that the overall intensity of internal migration has declined. Only the working age population has experienced an increase in migration because of its improving educational profile over time. After four decades of periurbanisation, re-urbanisation is observed in some agglomerations around 2000 but was a passing phase. Periurbanisation resumed and intensified since 2010, while recent population growth in city centers is driven by international migration. Unabated periurbanisation and its socioeconomic consequences led to a new spatial differentiation in mortality within urban agglomerations since the 1980s. A non-linear gradient, in which life expectancy is higher in agglomeration belts than in city centers and rural areas, has emerged in Switzerland, especially in the largest and most recently sprawling cities, as well as among Swiss nationals.

Intervenant

MATHIAS LERCH heads the Urban Demography Laboratory (URBDEMO) at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). 

To improve understanding of urban growth and urbanization, Lerch has developed international and multi-disciplinary research interests in the components of demographic change (mortality/health, fertility and migration), as well as in their interactions with socioeconomic and environmental developments. 

Before joining the EPFL, Lerch has acted as the deputy head of the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. 

He acted as the deputy head of the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and taught population change at various Swiss and German universities, as well as in transition countries. 

Since 2008, he has regularly advised national governments, United Nations entities and other stakeholders on population issues and data collection. 

Date: 10/06/2025

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