Mobility regimes in Hungary

From the end of state-socialism until the period of the work-based society

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of advancement and downward mobility in Hungary across four decades and within four socio-economic regimes (loosely corresponding to the early 1980s stagnation period, the turbulent phase of major socio-economic transformation following the political regime change, the settled post-transition society of the late 1990s and 2000s, and the conditions of the “work-based society” established in the 2010s). Using multivariate analyses, I investigate the role of parental background in individual patterns of material advancement during these different periods. As the dependent variable, I construct a material-wellbeing index (primarily based on income, and where necessary, supplemented by imputed proxy variables reflecting access to other material goods and savings). I use OLS regressions to assess the proportion of variance in the outcome variable explained by groups of explanatory variables, and I develop path models with identical structures to illustrate shifts between time periods. Finally, by analyzing the relative importance of factors attributable to parental background and individual demographic and labor market characteristics, I aim to draw conclusions about the prospects of meritocracy in recent Hungarian history. The results suggest that in each mobility regime, achieved material status is increasingly linked to educational attainment, while the effect of parental background is non-linear over time (first decreasing, then increasing again)—indicating that, overall, contradictory processes have taken place from the perspective of meritocracy.