Family friendly Hungary

Dec 2, 2021 by Jill

by Harry Benson, Marriage Foundation:

I’ve been somewhat immersed in all things Hungary during the past few weeks.

Last month, I was invited to an international conference on the family by their government-backed think tank KINCS. And this week I had the pleasure of lunch in the Hungarian embassy in London with their families minister Katalin Novak.

Hungary interests me greatly, and should interest all students of marriage for one reason alone. Their marriage rate has gone up by an astonishing 89 per cent over the past ten years.

It’s not even that they have a wildly pro-marriage policy. The rise in marriage rates is almost a bi-product of their demographics policy, what they call ‘family friendly Hungary’.

Ten years ago, Hungary’s government realised they had a major demographic problem. At 1.23 births per woman, their fertility rate was one of the lowest in the EU and well below the replacement level of 2.1 births. At a fertility rate of 1.23, the older generation are not being replaced by new babies and so their population is aging.

Through a series of benefits linked to work, school attendance, number of children, and in some cases marriage, they have seen their fertility rate climb to 1.56, very slightly above the EU average of 1.53.

While still short of replacement levels, it’s undeniable that ‘family friendly Hungary’ has been a success.

Read here

See also: The Conservative Party’s Biggest Postwar Failure: Marriage, by Edward Howard, The Mallard