Structural barriers of mixed-ethnic Roma-Hungarian couple relationships in Hungary's cities, 2011-2022

The analysis of factors that facilitate or hinder the formation of ethnically mixed marriages can provide valuable input for education, labor market, and healthcare policies. Both national and local policymakers should be aware that the increasing number and geographical distribution of Roma-Hungarian mixed partnerships may influence the spatial patterns of population growth, affect the well-being of children born into these unions—who may have different needs compared to children from ethnically homogeneous marriages—and, in the absence of adequate institutional support, potentially disrupt the balance of ethnic and cultural socialization.

We hypothesize that the more rigid a society’s stratification and the more segmented its economic and social environment, the less likely it is that individuals from ethnically polarized groups will form mixed partnerships. Using the full-scale, individual-level census data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) for the years 2011 and 2022, we examine the statistical relationship between the structural characteristics observed in major Hungarian cities in 2011 and the prevalence of Roma-Hungarian mixed partnerships in the same cities in 2022.