Series

The reader holds in their hands the 18th volume of the Social Report. With this, our series has undoubtedly secured a European championship title—no other publication of this genre on our continent has been issued as many times. However, our history is not the longest, as when the founding fathers of the series—Rudolf Andorka, Tamás Kolosi, and György Vukovich—compiled the first volume in 1990, they followed the model of Western European research institutes in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

The origins of social reports and monitoring programs date back to the 1970s when the prosperous welfare states of Western Europe used both general and individual welfare indicators to simultaneously track development trends and shifts in the distribution of well-being. At the time, what appeared to be rapid progress in data infrastructure—though now considered rudimentary—laid the foundation for the emergence of such report series. This was also a period when economic development and social prosperity carried an entirely unambiguous positive connotation.

Today, this perception has changed in many places—partly due to the spread of ideologies challenging economic growth and partly due to the shifting framework of evidence-based policymaking. Similarly, the range of countries publishing social reports has evolved. While the indicators, chapter structures, and specific approaches may vary, their fundamental purpose remains unchanged.

We take pride in the fact that, despite occasional financial uncertainties, this series published by TÁRKI has maintained a steady presence on the international stage. Moreover, our research institute plays an active role in organizing the international movement dedicated to social indicator-based reports, and TÁRKI also operates the website for the annual conferences in this field.

In the late 1980s, my friend Rudolf Andorka and I decided to compile a volume in Hungary that would primarily present data. At that time, several European countries were already publishing reports featuring social indicators. We invited György Vukovich, then President of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, to join us as the third editor, and we asked our authors to let the data, the facts, and their professionally sound interpretation speak for themselves in their studies. This is how the first Social Report was published in 1990, with institutional backing provided by TÁRKI, which had been founded five years earlier.

The costs of these biennial volumes were mostly covered by the ministry responsible for social policy. When official funding was denied, we turned to community-based financing to secure the necessary resources. On three occasions, we also published English-language selections of the studies and joined an international network of institutions producing similar reports.

Following the passing of Rudolf Andorka in 1998, István György Tóth played an increasingly significant role in organizing and editing the Social Report. Later, Iván Szelényi also contributed to the editing of the 2020 and 2022 volumes.

The current 18th volume of the Social Report is the first in which I am not involved as an editor. Instead, alongside István György Tóth, two younger colleagues, András Gábos and Márton Medgyesi, have taken up the mantle. However, the core mission and character of the publication remain unchanged: to present analyses based on data, reflecting the latest research on Hungary. In addition to TÁRKI researchers, our authors include a significant portion of Hungary’s sociologists and empirical social scientists.

I would like to express my gratitude to all our authors and colleagues for their contributions over the past 35 years. In January 2025, TÁRKI will celebrate its 40th anniversary as the first independent social science research institute in the region. The Social Report series stands as a testament to these four decades.

Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 as part of the first wave of the EU’s eastern enlargement. Even in the late 1990s, the prospect of EU accession contributed to Hungary’s rapid recovery from the deep transformation crisis. During its time as a member state, the country’s level of economic development has significantly converged with that of the EU’s more advanced member states.

However, according to two fundamental EU benchmarks for comparing member states' economic progress, Hungary’s convergence performance lags behind that of most Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 (hereinafter: EU11 countries). Several of these countries have not only caught up with but also surpassed Hungary in key performance indicators.

In this study, we begin with an international comparative statistical analysis to highlight the common driving forces behind the EU11 countries' convergence with the EU, as well as the key data illustrating Hungary’s relative decline in position. We then examine the specific characteristics of Hungary’s convergence process and, finally, propose hypotheses to explain the country-specific reasons for Hungary’s setback within the EU11 group.

In this section, our analysis narrows its focus to the Hungarian economy. We seek to answer what path dependencies and power struggles played a role in the governance crises between 2001 and 2010 and how, after 2010, Hungary’s political system (the Orbán regime) charted an alternative course, pushing the country to the margins of the European Union. 

From its inception, the European Union has pursued the fundamental goal of strengthening economic and social integration among its member states. This objective became even more pronounced with the accession of the less developed Central and Eastern European countries from the post-Soviet sphere. During both the political transitions and the EU’s eastern enlargement, the elites and electorates of these newly admitted countries were primarily driven by aspirations to economically and socially converge with Western Europe.

But has there been social convergence between Central and Eastern European countries and some of the older EU member states since the dissolution of the post-Yalta order and their accession to the EU? And if so, to what extent? This chapter seeks to answer that question by analyzing the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the four Visegrád countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), as well as Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria (hereinafter: EU11 countries), with particular emphasis on Hungary.

Most convergence analyses focus on economic indicators, examining trends such as the reduction of heterogeneity within larger country groups (e.g., EU15, EU27, or the Eurozone) through sigma-convergence, the degree of catch-up by poorer countries through beta-convergence, or the narrowing of differences within the entire observed population through so-called “club convergence.” In contrast, we argue that it is more meaningful to assess the development of the EU11 subregions by comparing them with the subregions most relevant to their respective contexts—Baltic states with Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe with Western-Central Europe, and Romania and Bulgaria with Italy and Spain.

Our analysis, covering the period from the early 1990s to the most recent available data, also diverges from most existing studies in this field by focusing primarily on social convergence rather than economic and institutional development.

The concept of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the countries included within this designation, remains ambiguous both in academic literature and everyday discourse (Szabó et al. 2019). For the purposes of this study, we define the Central and Eastern European region—primarily for practical reasons and due to the fundamental similarities in the processes under examination—as comprising Hungary and the other Visegrád countries (Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia), along with the post-Soviet and former socialist states that joined the EU in or after 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia). These eleven countries, commonly referred to as “Eastern” in EU documents, will hereafter be designated as the EU11 countries.

Our study explores the major trends in regional inequalities during the post-millennium period, covering the available data primarily up to 2021, and in some cases, 2022. We begin with a brief overview of key indicators for the European Union as a whole, with a particular focus on the EU11 group. Subsequently, we shift our attention to Hungary’s internal regional dynamics, examining income disparities as well as other dimensions of inequality, highlighting both patterns that align with broader Central and Eastern European trends and those that are uniquely Hungarian.

In both cases, beyond assessing the magnitude of inequalities and interpreting spatial patterns, we strive—within the constraints of our study’s scope—to provide explanations for regional characteristics, track temporal shifts, and identify the key underlying factors driving these changes.

Social cohesion is a multifaceted and complex concept, most commonly employed in the social sciences in relation to trust, cooperation, and social capital. However, it is also widely used in policy-making, particularly in the context of social inclusion, social innovation, and developmental policies aimed at reducing disparities. Within the European Union, social cohesion has played a key role in cohesion policy, which seeks to mitigate economic and social inequalities among member states. EU development funds, particularly the European Social Fund, are directed towards areas such as job creation, poverty reduction, and education.

Since Hungary's accession to the European Union, the concept of social cohesion has been primarily used in the context of social policy and convergence efforts. The aim of this study is to review the impact of EU development policies in Hungary over the past two decades, with a particular focus on the extent to which these financial instruments have contributed to reducing social and regional inequalities and fostering the development of disadvantaged areas.

However, assessing the impact of EU development policies on social cohesion presents significant challenges. One of the primary issues is that social investment measurements rely predominantly on outcome indicators, which do not allow for the systematic long-term tracking of effects. As a result, comprehensive and territorially detailed data necessary for evaluating the actual societal impact of development programs remain largely unavailable. This limitation makes it difficult to determine the extent to which EU development policy instruments have effectively supported vulnerable and disadvantaged groups within Hungarian society.

In recent years, the discourse surrounding the European Union has become increasingly intertwined with the issue of national sovereignty, both in Hungary and in other member states. Political actors opposing deeper EU integration, including explicitly euroskeptic figures, often portray the competencies and decision-making mechanisms of EU institutions as conflicting with, or even directly opposing, the interests of member states. While Hungary’s accession to the EU and the years immediately following it were marked by an almost unanimous political consensus in favor of European integration, this consensus has since eroded, giving way to more polarized opinions. This shift is also reflected in the communication strategies of successive Fidesz governments over the past decade.

In this study, I examine whether the perception of the EU as a constraint on national sovereignty is evident not only in political discourse but also in public attitudes. Specifically, I investigate whether individuals with a positive view of the EU are less likely to hold sovereigntist convictions, and conversely, whether those with a more negative opinion of the EU place greater emphasis on national sovereignty. Furthermore, I explore how these attitudes manifest across different social groups and how their interrelation has evolved over time. I hypothesize that euroskepticism and sovereigntist views are increasingly correlated at the individual level.

To address these research questions, I analyze Hungarian data from the National Identity module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), focusing on the survey waves conducted in 1995, 2003, 2013, and 2023.

Since 2010, increasing employment and reducing poverty have been jointly included among the European Union’s strategic objectives. The EU 2020 Strategy, the Union’s comprehensive plan for fostering smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth between 2010 and 2020, aimed to raise the employment rate of people aged 20–64 to 75% by 2020 and to reduce the number of people living in poverty or social exclusion by 20 million compared to the 2008 level (116 million). At the Porto Social Summit, EU leaders raised the employment target for the 2030 strategic period to 78%, while setting a goal to reduce the number of people living in poverty or social exclusion (91 million, including 17.9 million children) by 15 million, of whom 5 million would be children, compared to 2019 levels (European Commission, 2021).

During the 2010–2020 period, neither the employment nor the social target was fully met at the EU level. The employment rate fell slightly short of the target (73% instead of 75%), while the shortfall in achieving the social goal was more significant. In this study, we examine the relationship between employment and poverty trends in a cross-country comparison.

First, we analyze the trends related to the employment and social objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy within its reference period (2008–2020) (Chapter 2). Then, we explore the interaction between these two indicators at both the EU and member state levels using data from 2005 to 2020 (Chapter 3). The study concludes with an assessment from a Hungarian perspective (Chapter 4) and a summary (Chapter 5).

Our analysis is based on cross-sectional and country-level comparative data primarily from the Eurostat database, specifically from the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) on labor markets and the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) on household incomes and living conditions. Some of the results presented in the text are available in the Appendix, while others can be found in the Online Supplement. To reflect the composition of the EU for the majority of the strategic period, our analysis includes all 28 member states, including Croatia and the United Kingdom.

The stock of human capital in a country, including the education level and skills of its population, is one of the key drivers of economic growth and productivity. A vast body of literature examines this issue (see, e.g., Hanushek & Woessmann, 2023). It is now widely accepted that improving the quality of human capital is among the most crucial policies for middle-income countries seeking to escape the middle-income trap. Moreover, not only higher education but also the diversification of skills and competencies plays a decisive role (Agénor & Canuto, 2015; Agénor, 2017).

The skills and competencies acquired through upper secondary education (ISCED 3)—which corresponds to secondary education in Hungarian terminology—are increasingly considered the minimum requirement for successful labor market entry. This level of qualification is essential for further studies and enables individuals to participate in vocational training or adult education later in life, equipping them to adapt to evolving labor market demands (Brunello & Rocco, 2017).

Moreover, high-quality higher education is regarded as vital for economies aiming to move beyond basic production processes and low-value-added products and establish more complex value chains. The growing demand for higher education graduates has also been driven by the rise of digitalization, robotics, and automation (Albinowski & Lewandowski, 2024).

In this study, we examine the evolution of gender equality in Hungary between 2015 and 2022 based on available indicators, comparing it with the European Union member states, with a particular focus on the Visegrád countries. Gender equality is a fundamental value of the European Union, a basic right, and one of the key principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights (European Commission, 2020).

The period between 2015 and 2022 encompasses two European Semester cycles, designed to align the socio-economic policies of member states, and within them, two gender equality strategies (2015–2019 and 2020–2025). Accordingly, our study follows the objectives outlined by the EU in these two cycles. This means that we focus specifically on gender inequalities between men and women, without analyzing significant and negative changes concerning sexual minorities.

The first period set key goals, including increasing women’s labor market participation, reducing gender pay and pension gaps, combating women’s poverty, ensuring equal participation of men and women in decision-making, and fighting gender-based violence while protecting victims. The second period structured its objectives around three core themes: freedom, prosperity, and leadership.

The freedom dimension includes not only combating gender-based violence and protecting victims but also addressing gender stereotypes. Prosperity refers to ensuring equal economic participation for both women and men, extending beyond paid employment to promote a fairer distribution of unpaid caregiving responsibilities. It also aims to reduce occupational segregation, which significantly contributes to gender pay disparities, with a particular emphasis on encouraging women’s participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.

The leadership dimension seeks to promote equal opportunities for women in decision-making by increasing their presence in leadership roles within businesses, politics (e.g., government, parliament), and other public institutions (e.g., courts).