Thoughts on Hungary’s demographic decline

A health care expert who has worked under both left-wing and right-wing governments  thinks that population decline in Hungary cannot be stopped without facilitating migration to the country.

In 168 Óra, Gyula Kincses agrees with the government that demographic decline is a major challenge, but fears that the government’s action plan will prove ineffective in stopping Hungary’s depopulation. The health expert recalls that the Hungarian population has been shrinking since 1981. Thus the reasons for depopulation are structural rather than political, Kincses writes. He goes on to criticize the government’s plan to help middle class families. Kincses contends that the government’s demography policy plan is ‘ethnically tinted’ as it wants to boost child birth in non-Roma, middle class, Christian families. Kincses believes that the decline in birth rates in developed countries cannot be reversed, as richer families tend to have less children, regardless of whether they are religious or not. The only way for Hungary to stop demographic decline is to design a reasonable immigration policy, Kincses concludes.

Tags: demography, migration