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The paper analyses the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty in Hungary. The authors find that the increase in child poverty in the first phase of the crisis (2007–10) was driven by labour market trends, while the (weakened, but still functioning) automatic stabilizers reduced the magnitude of these effects. By contrast, in the second phase (2010–13), labour market processes started to improve, though the shift towards a regressive social policy regime contributed to increased poverty rates via the reduced poverty reduction impacts of cash benefits.

This year the Bezerédj-prize was awarded to 'The Hungarian Social Report' series, published by Tárki Zrt. The Bezerédj -prize was founded by Dr. Zoltán Bezerédj in 1993 to acknowledge and reward prominent Hungarian entities in the field of Arts and Sciences living in the country or abroad. 'The HungarianSocial Report' series, after prominent researchers and artists, was awarded in 2019 by the board of curators. The prize was presented by the chair of the board, Zoltán Bezerédi.

TÁRKI, as a frequent contributor and partner to various OECD reports, organized a presentation of two recent reports of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development for selected international and Hungarian press.  The two reports deal with major challenges of contemporary democracies in advanced economies of the world: in the lack of social mobility and the squeeze of the middle classes. The combined presentation of the two reports provided an excellent opportunity to discuss reasons, trends and potential policy options for building more efficient economies AND more inclusive societies at the same time. The two reports, 1. A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility, 2. Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class are:

This paper investigates the moderating role of public discourse in the effects of labeling asylum seekers on attitudes toward asylum policy. The study relies on a series of survey experiments conducted in Hungary in 2015 and 2016.
Originally, respondents were much more solidaristic toward “refugees” than “immigrants,” but the public discussion on asylum policy suppressed this wording effect—mainly by contaminating the concept of “refugee.”
A major lesson is that the power of words may be overestimated. Choice of words could have a significant effect on the audience when the stakes are low. However, when an issue is high on the agenda, wording alone cannot make up for the lack of deliberative analysis.

The regular report of the Chances for Children Association on child poverty Civil Report on Children’s Chances 2014-2017  starts with a chapter from TÁRKI researchers. When analysing the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty in Hungary, András Gábos and István György Tóth  found that the increase in child poverty in the first phase of the crisis (2007–10) was driven by labour market trends, while the (weakened, but still functioning) automatic stabilizers reduced the magnitude of these effects. By contrast, in the second phase (2010–13), labour market processes started to improve, though the shift towards a regressive social policy regime contributed to increased poverty rates via the reduced poverty reduction impacts of cash benefits.

TARKI’s senior researcher Peter Robert’s article explores cross-national variations in the impact of education on labour market outcomes using the risk of unemployment and occupational status as the key dependent variables. The study applies a comparative perspective on eight EU countries (three from CEE), representing different relationships between the education system and the labour market with various degrees of inequality, welfare provisions and labour market flexibility.  

What motivates people to behave morally; and how is this motivation connected to rational self-interest? The author starts from the beginning of the development of game theory and reviews the rational choice theories on the source of morality of the past 75 years to lay the ground for his own answers to those questions. He argues that motivation for moral action could not be separated from self-interest. Moral sense is simply the ability to understand cultural rules - formed and maintained in interactions of rational individuals - that set the conditions for enjoying the benefits of being an approved member of the society.

Click HERE to read more about the book (in Hungarian). 

An interview with Endre Sik was published in the CEASEVAL Spotlight series where he talks about what TARKI has been up to in the project in the past two years.

Click HERE to read it. 

Captivated by theory of the moral panic button by Endre Sik (TÁRKI), Sándor Kerekes summarizes how and why the practice of pushing the moral panic button evolved in Hungary in 2015. By adding a wider European social and political context, he also explains why this Hungarian political tool is unique in Europe.  

Click HERE to read the article on the Hungarian Spectrum.    
 

In recognition of their outstanding scientific work, the Presidium of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) awarded a restricted number of scientists with the Academic Award at the 191th Assembly of the HAS on Monday, 6 May 2019. István György Tóth, director of TÁRKI Social Research Institute and affiliated professor at Budapest Corvinus University was awarded the prize (alone in the field of social sciences) for recognizing his work on social structure, poverty and exclusion in Hungary and in international comparisons, on economics of the welfare state and for his research in the field of values and attitudes. The justification for the prize especially underlines his interdisciplinary work combining sociology, economics, statistics, demographics and value studies.