Hungary's Pronatalist Experiment and Its Impact on Birth Rates
Sitting on a park bench in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, Barbara Elek is nervously refreshing her emails. She and her husband Levi are waiting to find out if Barbara is pregnant, after their third round of IVF 10 days ago.
If it doesn't succeed, then obviously I'll be devastated, and then the last resort will be trying to make sure that, at least financially, we don't lose everything,
Like many other young Hungarian couples, Barbara, 33, a social worker, and Levi, 34, a chef, were eligible for tens of thousands of pounds in interest-free loans and subsidies when they promised to have two children. However, they have struggled to conceive naturally, and if they cannot prove a pregnancy by 1 November, they may be required to repay those loans with penalty interest.
The couple took out a 10 million-forint (£25,000) loan on the promise of having two children. Under rules introduced by Hungary's previous government, they could be asked to repay penalty interest ranging between 1.5 and 3.5 million forint (£3,700-£8,600), which they say is unaffordable. They also receive a mortgage subsidy with similar conditions.
In 2010, then Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initiated some of the most ambitious pronatalist policies globally—offering financial incentives to people who have or promise to have children. Hungary's fertility rate has been well below the replacement level of 2.1 babies per woman, the threshold needed to maintain a stable native-born population, accounting for child mortality. Additionally, Hungary has experienced high emigration and low immigration rates.
This issue is not unique to Hungary. Across Europe, fertility rates have been below replacement levels since the 1980s. Currently, more than half of all countries worldwide, representing around two-thirds of the global population, face similar challenges.
When Orbán was re-elected in 2010, Hungary's fertility rate was among the lowest in Europe. His party, Fidesz, pledged to address population decline. Orbán stated,
In the West, the answer to this is immigration. You bring in as many as you're missing. Hungarians think differently. We don't need numbers, we need Hungarian children.
Orbán, who was voted out of office in April 2024, implemented extensive tax breaks, interest-free loans, and mortgage subsidies for young couples who promised to have children. Additional subsidies were available for purchasing larger cars or renovating homes. These incentives applied only to married, heterosexual couples engaged in the formal job market.
Initially, these measures appeared to encourage higher birth rates. Hungary's fertility rate increased from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.59 by 2020.
For a time, Hungary was hailed as a success story, particularly among US conservatives. However, the fertility rate began to decline again, falling to 1.31 in 2025, only slightly above the rate at the policy's inception.
Judged by the aims of the policies, this is clearly a failure,
said Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography.
This raises questions about why Hungary's pronatalist approach initially boosted births but then saw a decline, and what insights it offers to other countries seeking to increase fertility.
Pronatalist Policies in Hungary
One perspective suggests Hungary's statistics indicate partial success. While fertility has declined across Europe over the past decade, proponents argue that Hungary's policies may have prevented an even steeper drop.
Fruzsina Skrabski, from the pro-family NGO Three Princes, Three Princesses, asserts,
Without these policies there would be hundreds of thousands of fewer children. I am certain it led to more children being born, just not enough to reverse the trend.
Maté, 43, and Agi Gorondy, 37, residents of Budapest's suburbs, fully agree. They have five children under ten years old and may have more. They credit Hungary's family-friendly environment, benefiting from generous maternity pay, interest-free baby loans, and subsidies for home renovation and purchasing a larger car. Maté, a freelance business developer, benefits from tax cuts, and Agi, as a mother of more than two children, will pay no income tax if she returns to work.
I think there's been a change in the past 16 years. In this neighbourhood… four- or five-child families are no longer rare,
Maté says.
Statistically, families with three or more children increased in Hungary during the 2010s, peaking at 146,000 in 2020, but declining to 125,000 by 2024.
Timothy P Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author on fertility decline, believes Orbán's success was placing family support at the center of political discourse. He highlights the "Family-Friendly Hungary" messaging prominently displayed in Budapest airport's arrivals hall.
However, some argue the benefits were unevenly distributed. Professor János Tóth, a philosopher at Hungary's University of Szeged studying demographic issues, believes incentives were most effective among the lower middle class in rural areas. In cities, where fertility rates are lowest, the financial incentives had less impact. He notes that the 10 million-forint (£25,000) "baby-expecting loan" initially helped many couples but has been eroded by inflation.
Every country has this problem of low fertility in cities,
he says. He suggests Hungary should focus more on supporting people to have their first child rather than encouraging larger families, stating,
The first child is the most important.
Eva Fodor, co-director of the Democracy Institute at Central European University, questions the overall impact of the policies.
It seems that these policies were effective for a little while, like most pronatalist policies are,
she says. She believes the policies prompted some people to have children they would have had anyway, but earlier than planned, causing a temporary rise in fertility before rates declined again.
Hungary's fertility trends may also reflect broader patterns in Eastern Europe. For example, the Czech Republic, which did not implement extensive pronatalist policies, experienced a similar rise and subsequent decline in fertility.
More Than Financial Incentives
For many parents, barriers to childbearing extend beyond finances to include essential services. Antonia Miskolczi, a 29-year-old mother in Budapest, says concerns about Hungary's healthcare system influenced her decisions more than financial incentives.
I was actually terrified of childbirth,
Antonia says. She viewed TikTok videos warning expectant mothers to bring their own toilet paper and disinfectant to hospitals and heard of relatives' negative experiences. She chose to give birth in a private hospital.
Antonia and her husband Marton utilized several benefits for their first child but plan to have only one more.
I don't think big promises are needed. Just fix the fundamentals and the willingness to have children will increase,
she says.
Improving education and healthcare should be the very first step if people are going to feel comfortable having children.
In 2019, Eva Fodor interviewed 21 well-educated, middle-class Hungarian women employed in state administration to assess if government support influenced their decision to have children. She found most regarded the support as a one-time payment rather than a long-term investment.
What they really need is institutions and health care systems and childcare, which they deemed insufficient,
she explains. Although Hungary expanded childcare access and invested in healthcare, many women still felt these measures were inadequate.
Hungary is not alone in attempting to reverse declining birth rates. South Korea, with a fertility rate of 1.19 in 2008, one of the world's lowest, has spent over £215 billion to encourage higher fertility. Parents receive an upfront "baby bonus" of £20,000-£30,000 at birth, monthly child benefits, and vouchers for private childcare.
Despite these efforts, South Korea's total fertility rate continued to decline, reaching 0.8 in 2025.
Fertility rates have fallen in most countries since the pandemic, a trend experts attribute to factors beyond economics. Demographer Tomas Sobotka suggests lockdowns, vaccination campaigns prompting pregnancy delays, and general instability discouraged childbearing.
Fertility tends to decline because people don't have confidence in the future,
he says.
The war in Ukraine and global inflation have introduced new shocks, with countries near the conflict experiencing the sharpest fertility declines. Globally, Sobotka notes,
People still feel insecure, uncertain about the future because there are all these crises unfolding and the political environment is very toxic.
Shifting Culture and Fertility
In the 2000s, Sweden and some Nordic countries implemented policies that indirectly boosted fertility by making it easier to balance work and family life. Measures such as shared parental leave, affordable childcare, and universal pre-school contributed to an increase in fertility rates from 1.5 to 2.0 over a decade.
Many scholars believed Sweden had reconciled feminism and fertility by facilitating dual parental roles. However, fertility rates declined again in the 2010s, puzzling researchers.
Sobotka argues that Nordic policies shielded these countries from severe fertility declines seen in East Asia.
At some level, every country needs at least the Nordic policy package and maybe better,
he says, emphasizing the importance of enabling men and women to share work and caregiving responsibilities.
Eva Fodor observes that Hungary has, in contrast,
strengthened this idea that women are the primary caretakers of the family,
leading to more rigid gender roles.
Timothy Carney suggests culture may matter more than financial incentives.
Part of the problem is we overestimate how much finances work,
he says. He points to Israel, the only OECD country with a fertility rate above replacement, which does not have high government family spending but has a strong cultural emphasis on childbearing, partly motivated by rebuilding the Jewish population after the Holocaust.
However, Carney cautions,
The government's ability to shift culture is very limited,
and politicizing culture can be risky.
In some countries, cultural backlash is evident. In South Korea, surveys reveal many young women resist marriage and family as a protest against patriarchal family models.
France, by contrast, has maintained a relatively high fertility rate of 1.6, supported by substantial public spending and a focus on work-life balance.
South Korea lacks such flexibility. Sobotka explains,
For men there is this kind of traditional notion of breadwinners, so they often come from home very late at night. This is punishing for both women and men, but also for family life.
Child-rearing responsibilities largely fall to women, who face anticipatory discrimination, often withdrawing from the labor market or taking part-time or unstable jobs around childbirth.
Similarly, Hungary lacks workplace flexibility.
Even state-owned companies are not flexible, they do not take into account the fact that men and women both may have responsibilities outside of the labour market,
Fodor says.
The Orbán government spent about 5% of GDP on family-friendly initiatives, which were popular enough that Hungary's new leader, Peter Magyar, did not campaign on changing them.
We are living in societies where parenthood is extremely expensive. So whatever different countries can do to support parents and support families is a good policy,
Sobotka says.
Fodor offers a different perspective:
If that money had been spent on social institutions and… gender equality and promoting men's role in domestic work, I think a similar increase in the fertility rate could have been achieved.
Personal Stories and Policy Challenges
Barbara and Levi's experience is not unique. The Hungarian National Bank reports that one in five couples who took out loans five years ago did not have children. The new Hungarian government stated it is reviewing these policies and considering how to handle cases where couples do not fulfill their childbearing commitments.
Barbara's awaited email finally arrived: the implanted embryo had not survived.
It's horrible, just horrible,
Levi said, holding his wife.
In family-friendly Hungary, the couple find themselves caught in a system that promised support but now faces the loss of their hoped-for family and potential financial instability.
On 16 June, BBC World Service launched a Hungarian-language service, Magyarul, to provide trusted journalism to Central European audiences. The service is available on the website, Facebook, and Instagram.
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