Katrina M. Hier

 

 

On April 1, 2025, the Danube Institute, in partnership with the Youth Research Institute, hosted a conference titled "Family Formation and the Future: The Geopolitical, Cultural, and Legal Dimensions of Demographic Change.” This event aimed to provide an international platform to discuss the multifaceted aspects of demographic shifts, with a particular focus on family and fertility. Hungary's proactive approach to supporting family formation through innovative economic measures and tax incentives positions it as a potential model for global family policy.

The conference explored several pressing questions, conversing and debating with participants from all across Europe and the USA:

  • What social, cultural, and economic factors are driving the decline in fertility rates in developed nations?
  • What role should public policy play in strengthening marriage and family formation?
  • How can values such as truth, beauty, and goodness be integrated into public life to secure our future?
  • How do patterns of migration, urban crime, and legal enforcement affect families and communities?

One of the very first talks and presentation of the conference was delivered by the Youth Research Institute’s team, following the opening remarks of István Kiss, Executive Director of the Danube Institute, H. E. Ambassador Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, Ambassador of Hungary to the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and Balázs Hankó, Hungarian Minister for Culture and Innovation.

Georgina Kiss-Kozma, Head of Research at the Youth Research Institute, presented on the demographic picture in Hungary and the U.S. She sought to answer the question of why children are needed in societies. She believes childlessness is the most pressing crisis of our times. She underscored that the Youth Research Institute's main goal is to understand young people and their environment as this is crucial to developing successful family policy.

The Youth Research Institute recently conducted a nationwide representative survey between December 2024 and January 2025, comparing the future aspirations and family planning intentions of young people aged 15–39 in Hungary and the United States. The study, based on 1,000 respondents from each country, provides insights into attitudes toward marriage, parenthood, and societal expectations surrounding family life.

Family Planning Trends

The demographic trends in Europe have long been unfavourable – and in the meantime, the situation in the USA is fast-approaching.

Among young Hungarians who are currently unmarried, a significant proportion expressed a desire to marry in the future. Similarly, young Americans demonstrated a comparable interest in marriage. Though forms of cohabitation are becoming more varied, marriage still usually represents the first step in the process of establishing a family. Dr. Kiss-Kozma highlighted the importance of marriage and its positive impact on people’s happiness.

More and more people however are postponing having children – worldwide. Women typically only begin in their early 30s; women now in Hungary are only starting to have children at an age when, in the 1980s until the early 2000s, they had “almost finished” having children. Generally, it appears that this increasingly older age for motherhood is accepted by young people. This has resulted in an overall sharp decline in fertility over the past 20 years.

Just as it is becoming more and more normal to get married at an older age, so it is to have children later on. The study asked participants about the appropriate age range for deciding to have children: while there is general consensus on the youngest acceptable age to have children (the majority marking the ranges of 18 to 21 and 22 to 25 years old), the oldest acceptable age had differing results. Nearly a third of Americans cited 45 years and older as “the right age” to have children while almost a third of Hungarian youth the range of 38 to 41 years old.

This postponed age of childbearing often results in having fewer children than planned as couples simply run out of time. This produces a difference in the revealed slight differences in the actual, planned, and ideal number of children among young people in both countries.

  • Hungary: The average actual number of children per respondent is 0.60, with a planned number of 1.74 and an ideal number of 2.11.
  • US: Young Americans report having slightly more children on average (0.77), with a planned number of 2.11 and an ideal number of 2.35.
  • The maximum desired number of children is also slightly higher among Americans (2.47) compared to Hungarians (2.13).

Ideal Family and Views on Parenting

An important aspect that must be understood is what young people see as an ideal family: generally, though young people are more tolerant of cohabitation, single life, and divorce, the traditional family structure is still considered the idea by the majority. Ideally, they would like both parents present along with grandparents involved.

One of the most striking differences however among the two groups surveyed, was the proportion of those consciously choosing to not have children. While in Hungary about a fourth of respondents expressed this opinion, almost half of those in the USA plan to remain childless. Many also believe that having fewer children is a solution to climate change, and lower birth rates should be encouraged.

Outlook for the Future

Overall, the Youth Research Institute’s results reveal many similarities and some marked differences between Hungarian and American youth in terms of marriage intentions, family planning, and perceptions of parenting. The findings indicate a general preference for having children, however, the presence and influence of liberal ideologies has had its impact. That is why the Hungarian government, for nearly fifteen years, in an effort to fight back against those trends, has established and expanded a system of family support measures to encourage young people to start families. She highlighted that it is essential to research and understand what the main barriers are standing in the way for young people who want to start a family.

Roundtable Discussion

This presentation from the Head of Research was then followed by a round table discussion featuring experts in the field of family policy, invited and assembled by the Youth Research Institute:

  • Emma Waters, Policy Analyst at the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation. Her research specializes in family, biotechnology, and reproductive technology.
  • Gergely Réti, Collegium Commissioner at MCC and formerly active at the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Innovation, in the field of youth policy.
  • Johanna Frohlich, Senior Research Fellow at Ludovika University.

The discussion was moderated by Levente Székely, Head of the Center for Sociology and the Youth Research Institute at MCC.

Emma started off the panel by providing insights on the situation in the US: she clarified that before the start of the “birth dearth” came the “marriage recession.” In other words, the steadily declining rate of marriage in the USA seems to have laid the groundwork for the decreasing fertility rates. She emphasized that in the USA, government officials have taken to using the term “pro-family” rather than “pro-natalist” when describing these issues and policies in order to make it more palatable for those who would instinctively oppose natalist efforts. In fact, Vice President JD Vance has made a real effort to bring his children and his family into the public view along with his faith, which serves as a strong example of the pro-family governance

Johanna Fröhlich followed by discussing the position of motherhood, its merits and the social obligation one may have to bear children. She highlighted that the difficulties of raising children must not be glossed over and that this process requires substantial sacrifice. These sacrifices however are not necessarily recognized nor honored enough in society according to her. She discussed the model of care surrounding child-rearing and the choice-oriented approach people take to having children: that it is simply a choice to be made on a personal level.  

Gergely Réti talked about the state of young people in Hungary today and the government initiatives in place. One of the important points he emphasized was the difficulties young people face today in dating and finding a partner. In his research and experience, tight-knit, dynamic communities are fewer and farther between; simultaneously, young people are feeling increasingly lonely and isolated. He himself is an active scout and sees that communities like the scouts as well as those found connected to churches offer beneficial community environments for young people.

The participants of the panel then continued on to talk about religious communities – more specifically, about the relatively high fertility rates that they often retain in comparison to the majority society. The conversation underscored that if one believes in religion, believes in God and a greater good, then they believe in the transcendence of childbearing and in the wealth of family. To conclude, Emma Waters expressed a powerful thought: it is happy and hopeful people that have children – if we are not having children, what does that say about us as a society?