The Triumph of Novelty over Experience? Social Policy Responses to Demographic Crises in Hungary and Poland since EU Enlargement

In the citing paper

“A comparison of family policies employed in the three former communist states of Poland, Hungary and Romania show continuity in the pre-1990 period as the three states share Bismarckian legacies as regards maternity care, protection of the traditional family as well as all major benefits which were extended during the communist period.”

In the citing paper

“In 2013, Poland registered a fertility rate at 1.29, compared to Hungary at 1.35, when both countries remained far below the EU-28 average of 1.55.”

In the citing paper

“the median age of Hungary's population increased from 37.4 to 41.3 years.”

In the citing paper

“In contrast, Poland neglected family support and childcare until recently.”

In the citing paper

“The Polish demographic crisis was further exacerbated by mass migration (predominantly of younger people) to the west, reaching a high of 2.5 million: more than 2 million Poles moved to EU states in 2016”

In the citing paper

“Hungary has been a leader in the development of kindergartens and achieved major progress in the area of family policy during the 1970s and 1980s, when both Poland and Romania lagged far behind”

In the citing paper

“In Poland, during the same period, the median age rose even faster from just 33.4 to 39.5.”

In the citing paper

“Unlike Poland, Hungary developed and maintained a generous and extensive social policy, with a particular focus on the declining fertility rate and childcare during the decades before 2004.”

In the citing paper

“Large families with three or more children as well as those lower-income families who had faced the greatest losses following the transition to a market economy after the regime change have benefited the most from the new family policy”

In the citing paper

“the second Orbán government's reform program offered substantial tax breaks for higher- and middle-income families and based its family policy on a disproportional redistribution of funds from the poor to the wealthy”

In the citing paper

“As a result of the reform, child poverty decreased by as much as fifty to seventy percent in comparison to the pre-2016 period.”

In the citing paper

“Poland, however, embarked on a different path of family policy, even though this route also focused on the continuing fertility decline”

In the citing paper

“In 2015, it was the Law and Justice (PiS) Party, which announced the major benefit known as 500+ . This new family policy granted each family with two or more children a monthly, tax-free benefit of 500 zloty (ca.120 Euros), which was separate from the means-tested family allowance”

In the citing paper

“In Hungary, Orbán's centralized, decision-making power left little room for civic bodies: in Poland, the discussion surrounding the family program was a complex process of interaction carried out among political parties, nongovernmental bodies and individuals with considerable influence in the formulation of family policy before 2016.”

In the citing paper

“Beginning in 2016, this program was expanded to include all children in the 500+ .”

In the citing paper

“In contrast, from 2010 the Hungarian family policy focused only on the 'better-off families' found in the upper and middle strata of society and disregarded child poverty (Inglot 2020: 3; See Appendix, Table 6).”