Faced with a plummeting population, fiercely anti-immigration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has come up with an answer sparking yet another controversy: “We need Hungarian children.”
Earlier this month, Orban unveiled a seven-point “family protection action plan” stacked with incentives for young couples to have children.
However, opinion is divided on whether it will have the desired effect — and some critics see disturbing historical echoes in his plan.
Photo: AFP
The policies announced by Orban include a life-long tax exemption for women who bear four or more children, and more kindergartens.
It also offers lump-sum, 10 million forint (US$35,759) loans for newly-wed women younger than 40, canceled once they have three children.
“This — not immigration — is the response of the Hungarian people,” 55-year-old father-of-five Orban said in a state-of-the-nation speech that was greeted with rapturous applause.
“With 10 million forints, my partner and I can finally think of buying an apartment around here and moving out from my parents’ at last,” said Nora Koszeghy, a 24-year-old teacher outside a supermarket in a Budapest suburb, as her toddler dozed in a stroller.
“We were planning for a brother or sister for Juli. Maybe she can have two or even three now, who knows,” she told reporters.
Supporters of Orban’s seven-point plan — including Hungary’s ambassador to the Vatican — have hailed his family policies as “visionary.”
Pro-government pundits have argued that only such direct action can prop up a population that has been falling since 1981, and which could shrink from its current 9.7 million people to 6 million by 2070, according to a recent report by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH).
Orban’s national-conservative government, in power since 2010, has said that no EU member has been spending more on family support, and it insists its approach has already borne fruit.
Incentivized by tax breaks and a subsidized housing scheme for young married couples, marriage rates have been rising since 2010, with abortion and divorce declining.
Hungary’s fertility rate, the lowest in the EU at about 1.25 children per woman in 2010, has risen to near the bloc’s average of 1.6, according to figures published by Eurostat.
Orban’s government has set a 2030 target of 2.1, the rate needed to halt population decline.
However, some statisticians remain skeptical that in the long run the government’s measures will shift a stubbornly low birthrate.
“The uptick in fertility was also due to the end of the economic crisis,” said one expert at the KSH, who asked not to be named. “Bigger problems are high emigration — over a half-million since 2010 — and, crucially, the falling number of women of childbearing age.”
With men not explicitly mentioned among the seven points, some women also fear that the measures will simply add to pressure on them from a deeply conservative society to have children.
The 10 million forint loan would have to be paid back with interest if no babies arrive, an official said when pressed on the plan’s small print.
Meme creators on Hungarian social media have even caught a whiff of the hit TV series The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel of the US ruled by a misogynistic theocracy.
“I don’t want to give birth for Viktor Orban,” 35-year-old financial journalist Sarolta Szekely told reporters.
“A child is not just a question of money,” said Szekely, who is currently single, but would like to have children one day. “Good education and healthcare, and earning enough to raise a child are more important factors than keeping a lump sum if I meet a quota.”
“That’s not family protection — that’s a production program,” she said.
Social scientists are concerned that poor people — including those belonging to the impoverished Roma ethnic minority who make up about 7 to 10 percent of the population — do not have the stable jobs or spare cash needed to apply for the credit.
The measures mostly benefit middle and higher-income earners, Hungarian Academy of Sciences sociologist Dorottya Szikra said.
“Increasing child support payments — unchanged for 10 years — or providing more social housing would benefit more families,” she told reporters.
While the results of the new “baby boom” plan would only be visible over the long term, polls have suggested at least a short-term bounce for Orban.
That is welcome news for his Fidesz party, which has seen a dip in support over controversial labor reforms that triggered a wave of street protests.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese