Összefoglalás.

Elemzésünk célja, hogy bemutassuk azokat a népesedési folyamatokat, amelyek az elmúlt évtizedben a népesség jelentős fogyását okozzák, és aminek eredményeként a jövőbeli népesedési folyamatok alakulnak. Vizsgálatainkat és értelmezéseinket a három népesedési komponens, a termékenység, halandóság, illetve a nemzetközi vándorlás mentén végezzük. Az elemzésből kiderül, hogy évszázadunk második évtizedében a népességfogyás legfőbb tényezője a halálozási veszteség volt, de a népességfogyást a nemzetközi vándorlás negatív egyenlege is érdemben növelte. A születések és a halálozások száma közötti különbség 1981 óta fennáll; a természetes fogyás előbb a születésszám csökkenése, majd az évtized végén a Covid–19 járvány miatt nőtt. A negatív vándorlási egyenleget főképpen a német és az osztrák munkaerőpiaci nyitás növelte meg. A jelenlegi korszerkezetet figyelembe véve az előreszámítások a népesség további csökkenését vetítik előre.

Summary.

The aim of our analysis is to present the population trends that have caused the significant population decline in the last decade in Hungary and that will determine the future Hungarian population in terms of numbers and composition. Our analyses and interpretations are carried out along the three population components: fertility, mortality, emigration and immigration. The analysis reveals that in the second decade of our century, the main factor of population decline was mortality loss, but that the negative balance of international migration also contributed significantly to population decline.

Natural reproduction (births minus deaths) has been negative in Hungary since 1981. In the period following the change of regime, natural increase increased from -1.9 per thousand births in 1990 to -4.1 per thousand in 2003, due to a decline in the birth rate. In the decade between 2010 and 2020, it ranged between -3.5 and -4.1, reaching -6.4 per thousand in the second year of the Covid-19 (2022).

The number of birth, which although fluctuated somewhat between 2010 and 2020, but was essentially stagnating, is the result of two opposite processes. On the one hand, the propensity to have children, measured by the total fertility rate, has been steadily increasing. On the other hand, the number of women of childbearing age, including women aged 20-39 who are of prime childbearing age, has been steadily declining.

An important feature of the pre-pandemic period was the slowdown in mortality improvement. The negative trend was observed in both EU countries and in our country, affecting both men and women. The age-specific look highlighted slowdown among middle-aged (30-59 years) man and women, and the improvement in mortality has declined also among younger elderly people (60-79 years). The stagnation in the number of deaths in Hungary was both a consequence of an ageing age structure and a reduction in the improvement in life expectancy. This stagnation was replaced by a rapid increase in mortality with the emergence of the Covid-19 epidemic. Our analysis revealed that during the pandemic the mortality risk for men was higher than that for women, and surprisingly the slope of the age-specific mortality risks were very similar to age-specific mortality risks before the epidemic.

Hungary’s net migration was positive for a long time after the regime change, then turned negative shortly before the decade under review, with the number of people leaving the country exceeding the number of people arriving. The main reason that after the opening of the Austrian and German labour markets in 2011, outmigration, especially labour emigration rapidly increase among Hungarians according to ‘mirror statistics’. Noteworthy, Hungarian outmigration is among the lowest compared to the new EU states. A new development is that significant “return migration” trends can be observed at the end of the decade.

At the end, as a summary, three population scenarios are presented, the most likely baseline scenario, the high fertility scenario and the zero net migration scenario. The baseline scenario shows that by 2050 the population size will fall to 8.5 million, which corresponds to a 13% decline over roughly three decades. The age structure will also change radically; while in 2019 the share of people aged 65 and over is 14.5%, in 2050 it will be 27.5%, i.e. more than a quarter of the population will be aged 65 and over.