[balladeer]

I must be missing something. Because it reads as if it’s extremely shitty for women in Switzerland and that’s a place having above average European standards. I’d assume at least at par with Scandinavia. Or at least that’s how I have come to know it from far.

[throwaway301]

It's complex. From what I've seen, it's largely fine if you're young and don't have children, or if you're older and your children are past the first year of kindergarten. There is still a proverbial glass ceiling in place at a lot of companies, but there are also a lot of examples of women in prominent positions in business and government.

It gets difficult - again, from what I've seen - when you run into edge cases that brush up against how things are traditionally done. I don't think that a lot of companies have gotten a handle on how to accommodate women with children. For example, average working hours can easily go past 17:30, but most kinderkrippe close at 18:00. There are also social expectations that are hard to interpret or otherwise navigate, especially if you're not a native citizen and didn't grow up in the culture.

I think that the situation isn't that different from a lot of other European countries, and it also appears to be improving (even in my limited time here, I've noticed that there has been a lot of discussion around the gender pay gap, and a stronger focus on accommodating women with children at work).