Marriage Week takes place this year between 10 and 16 February 2025. In Hungary, a series of events will be held for the 18th time this year on this occasion. Marriage, as one of the most typical forms of social relationships, has become increasingly important in the last decade also in terms of having children. Thanks to the extensive family support scheme introduced by the government in 2014, the proportion of children born within marriage has been increasing since 2015. While a decade ago, 47 out of 100 children were born out of wedlock, last year the rate fell to below 25 per cent. This article looks at the link between childbearing subsidies and the number of marriages, as well as the economic impacts of marriage.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21785935/
Late last year, the UN produced its estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) for 2024. This indicator shows the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime, holding constant the fertility rate for a given year. In demographic terms, this indicator is also used to describe the propensity to have children. To maintain population levels in the long term, a TFR of around 2.1 is needed. This puts Hungary in ninth place out of the 27 EU member states. According to a flash report published in January by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), the estimated fertility rate for last year is slightly lower than the UN estimate. Assuming that the UN estimate for the other countries was accurate, Hungary would be ranked 15th in the EU ranking in 2024 with a TFR of 1.38.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786086/
In Hungary, the total fertility rate was at its lowest since the turn of the millennium in 2011 (1.23) and at its highest a decade later (1.61). After the nadir, in 2012-2013 the rate approached its peak of the 2000s (2008, 1.35), but the spectacular increase was achieved after the introduction of the family support scheme in 2014. According to Eurostat’s latest data, Hungary recorded the second highest increase in its fertility rate between 2011 and 2021, after the Czech Republic.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786145/
In the three years following the peak in 2021, the fertility rate started to decline. In the long run, a decline in the willingness to have children during and for years after economic crises can be observed. This relationship highlights that childbearing depends on three main factors: the cultural and economic environment and the physical constraints to childbearing, the latter factor meaning the number of women of childbearing age.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786227/
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786271/
As shown in the graph above, as the population ages, not only the total population but also the number of women of childbearing age (15-49 years) is declining. As a result, the number of this population group fell to 2.089 million last year. Given natural constraints, it is worth assessing the propensity to have children on the basis of the live births rate in relation to the number of women of childbearing age. This shows that, as the graph below shows, although the number of births last year was at a record low (only 77,500), the decline in the number of women of childbearing age meant that the propensity to have children was not lower than in 2011, the lowest since 2010.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786331/
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786380/
As the chart above shows, the 46,000 marriages in Hungary last year is a low in the past ten years, and is average for the 25 years since the turn of the millennium, ranking 12th. The reversal in the trend in the number of marriages over the last decade is clearly due to the extensive family support scheme introduced in 2014. The linking of a significant share of state aid to encourage childbearing to marriage has led to a remarkable increase in the number of marriages, in a marked break with the previous trend. Another positive development, partly due to the linking of family support to marriage, is that the share of children born within marriage has been rising again since 2015.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786437/
Marriage brings economic benefits for both parties
In 1973, Nobel Prize-winning Chicago professor Gary Becker theorised the economics of marriage, arguing that the institution of marriage and international trade are built on similar foundations: maximising comparative advantage. Just as countries specialise in the production of different goods, he theorised that men and women achieve their best results in different areas. The theory suggests that men do better in the labour market because they earn higher wages, while women do better at home-making and raising children. Competition for spouses produces couples that maximise the ‘output of marriage’, i.e. families with high monthly earnings and adequate child-rearing in an orderly home. In 2014, Carbone-Cahn complemented this theory in their book Marriage Markets, arguing that this ‘marriage market’ in the US is becoming increasingly fragmented. At the top end of the income scale, relatively more higher-earning men compete for relatively fewer higher-earning women. At the lower end of the scale, including the middle class, potential husbands are lower-earning, even unemployed men, so many women choose to start life alone rather than with a less reliable husband.
At the same time, US trends suggest positive economic effects of marriage. Research by Wilcox-Lerman in 2014 looked at income data in the US between 1980 and 2012 and found that the median income of families with married parents increased by 30% over this period, compared to an increase of just 14% for non-married parents. They also found that the more married families in a given state, the higher its GDP per capita, the better its upward economic mobility and the lower its child poverty rate.
European data show that men with stable jobs and higher incomes are more likely to be married. In addition, a significant effect on the continent is that women’s lower income is a greater barrier to marriage than men’s. Reznik’s 2014 research also found that the influence of income status on the propensity to marry is most significant in northern European countries. Meanwhile, economic measures in Hungary have produced impressive results in the area of family policy. Examples include the first-marriage allowance and the Family Housing Support Programme (CSOK). The so-called “crude marriage rate” (number of marriages per 1,000 people) doubled from 3.7 in 2013 to 7.4 in 2021.
The figure can be referenced here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21786474/
