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One thing’s for sure: Orbán governments have been spending unwavering money on family support programs since 2010. Tax relief, loan support, one-time benefits, access to housing – billions of billions of florins were spent on these alone.
This year’s budget is the family budget, according to the government,
accordingly, the cabinet allocated a total of 2,200 million guilders to families in budget planning. This, of course, includes everything, even the 40 shows for women.
There is less than this to support motherhood, but this is not enough: 380 billion for a tax credit, 300 billion guilders for a kiss, a kiss in the village, a loan to expect a baby.
The government expects a demographic shift from all of this, but exactly what that means is unknown. As long as the fertility rate is less than 2, we are talking about a population decline. This indicator has been 1.49 for years, which represents an improvement over the period before 2015, but is far from ideal. In other words, we could even talk about success, since the situation does not get worse.
At the same time, it is not possible to stop the decline in the birth rate, which research shows is simply due to fewer women of childbearing age.
Therefore, there is no tipping point, at most a stagnation, that is, based on the birth data, it is not yet possible to declare with sufficient determination that the programs are successful.
First round: tax credit
In the last ten years, each year between 88 and 93 thousand children were born in Hungary. In the previous decade, that number ranged from 94,000 to 98,000. Though he would give himself the conclusion,
It is not because of the Orbán governments that women do not give birth, it is a much more negative trend that has lasted for decades.
There were four years between 2010 and 2019 when fewer than 90,000 babies were born: 2011 and 2013, then 2018 and 2019. The best year was 2016, when more than 93,000 babies were born.
If we add the measurements in addition to these numbers, most of the time it will turn out that nothing will be revealed.
Since 2011, more and more child-bearing grants have appeared.
The first measure was the introduction of the family tax credit from 2012. From the point of view of families with one or two children, this was more symbolic, since the discount was ten or twenty thousand guilders, which probably not encouraged no one to give birth. However, after three children, it costs 99 thousand guilders. In the years after the discount was introduced, the indicator appeared to start to rise, but soon fell back to 90,000, which means that it is not possible to prove that more babies were born with the family tax credit, as the change would be continuous in that moment. The impact of the 2019 discount extension may not yet be felt, after two children are already double the original amount.
Second round: chocolate
The next big measure is the household allowance for housing, namely chocolate, which started in the summer of 2015. This is primarily aimed at getting a house or moving to a bigger and better apartment. It is also true of the kiss, like the tax credit, that with one or two children, maintenance is symbolic, especially in relation to the price of a property. With three children, the amount of support is 10 million HUF.
Since the beginning of chocolate, 55,000 children have been adopted by families. Children must be born within a maximum period of ten years.
The only question is how many of these 55,000 children would be born anyway.
Four and a half years after the start of chocolate, there is no growth or change in trend. Could we cut that the 55,000 babies would be born without a chocolate? Certainly this cannot be said, if only because a program starting in 2015 cannot be expected to have an immediate impact. However, at the moment, it seems that fewer and fewer babies have been born since 2016, 89,000 last year. The big question is what will happen this year: the first half of the year shows an increase of 5.5 percent, which would mean 93,000 babies throughout the year.
This is definitely a significant increase, it is a question of whether it is a one-time bounce or a turnaround. The latest family support tool, the waiting baby loan, is certainly not making an impact yet. With a baby expecting in the future, a loan of ten million guilders can be repaid without having children. This also requires three children.
That’s what a child is worth
Since 2012, the government has clearly supported large families in the first place. The family tax credit is HUF 99,000 for three children, the chocolate is HUF 10 million for three children (plus a discounted loan of HUF 10 or 15 million), and the expecting baby can even be used to reinstate a HUF 10 million loan. Discounts can also be accumulated.
Based on these, a real gold mine for the child. However, according to the data, this has not changed yet. the indicators are quite choppy, from which no trend emerges.
If in fact there is a general increase in the desire to have children as a result of the programs, it should be seen that the number of families with one or two children is decreasing as they have more children, thus the number of children with three or two children. more children is increasing, or at least not the value of families raising one or two children. However, you can’t see any of this, there are no more third children at the system level.
Meanwhile, a family with an unborn baby can receive 6.6 million HUF per child from the state, plus a tax credit of almost 1.2 million HUF per year. In comparison, a first child is worth HUF 120,000 per year and a second child is worth HUF 360,000 per year.
This does not seem fair, but it must also be seen that the budget would not resist parents who receive millions for each baby. Almost half of the babies, approximately 40,000 newborns a year, are the first children. By comparison, there are only about 12,000 babies born third. If support for large families were extended to the first children (in fact, having the first child is the biggest change and commitment) it would cost the budget more than a billion guilders a year, which is obviously not a viable option.
(Cover Image: Index)
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