The Triumph of Novelty over Experience? Social Policy Responses to Demographic Crises in Hungary and Poland since EU Enlargement

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Politics and Current Demographic Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Tsveta Petrova and Tomasz Inglot. During the past two decades, many European countries, including Germany, Italy, and Spain in the west, and Poland and Hungary in the east, encountered prolonged demographic crises. These challenges first became evident in the late 1990s as fertility rates declined rapidly, much below the level necessary to ensure a simple replacement of generations. Moreover, since the EU accession, mass labor migration from the new Member States to the more developed western European countries added yet another dimension to the growing population problems. This article attempts to explain variation in governmental policy responses to these developments between two countries, Poland and Hungary. Hungary, owing to its long-term tradition of relatively generous and extensive social programs directed to families, youth, and children, should be expected to handle its population emergency much better than Poland. Yet, the opposite has happened. In the last few years, Poland has proposed and implemented several innovative measures to address fertility and migration pressures while Hungary has remained committed to its traditional social policies in this domain. I will analyze and compare the two cases by examining a combination of historical factors related to the legacies of demographic emergencies defined in terms of national strength and survival, and by examining the politics of family policy, with a special focus on the creation of coalitions of governmental and/or nongovernmental actors that either facilitate or obstruct effective policy innovation.