What one country's experiment says about attempts to boost birth rates

13 hours ago

Stephanie Hegarty, population correspondent, and

Zsofia Paulikovics, BBC News Magyarul

BBC

Sitting on a park bench in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, Barbara Elek is nervously refreshing her emails. She and her husband Levi are waiting to find out if Barbara is pregnant, after their third round of IVF 10 days ago.

"If it doesn't succeed, then obviously I'll be devastated, and then the last resort will be trying to make sure that, at least financially, we don't lose everything," she tells BBC Global Women.

Like many other young Hungarian couples Barbara, 33, a social worker and Levi, 34, a chef, were eligible for tens of thousands of pounds in interest-free loans and subsidies when they promised to have two children. But they've struggled to get pregnant naturally and if they can't prove they have a child on the way by 1 November then it is possible they may have to pay back those loans with penalty interest.

The couple took out a 10 million‑forint (£25,000) loan on the promise of having two children. Under rules introduced by Hungary's previous government, they could be asked to repay penalty interest of between 1.5 and 3.5 million forint (£3,700-£8,600), something they say they can't afford. They also receive a mortgage subsidy with similar terms.

In 2010, then prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán embarked on some of the most ambitious pronatalist policies in the world - paying people to have, or promise to have, children. Hungary's fertility is well below the replacement level of 2.1 babies per woman needed to keep the native-born population steady - a number that accounts for those children who don't survive to adulthood. And on top of that, there have been high levels of emigration and low immigration.

Reuters

When Viktor Orbán was re‑elected in 2010, Hungary's fertility rate was among the lowest in Europe

It's not just a Hungarian issue. Across Europe, fertility rates have been below the level needed to keep the population stable without immigration since the 1980s. Today, the same is true in more than half of all countries, home to around two‑thirds of the world's population.

When Orbán was re‑elected in 2010, Hungary's fertility rate was among the lowest in Europe. His party, Fidesz, promised to tackle population decline. "In the West, the answer to this is immigration. You bring in as many as you're missing. Hungarians think differently. We don't need numbers, we need Hungarian children."

Orbán, who was voted out of office in April this year, rolled out extensive tax breaks, interest-free loans and mortgage subsidies to young couples who promised to have children. There are also subsidies to buy a bigger car or renovate your home. The incentives were only available to married, heterosexual couples and those in the formal job market.

At one point, it seemed all of this was pushing Hungarians to reproduce. The fertility rate rose from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.59 by 2020.

Hungary, for a time, was hailed as a great success story by some - especially US conservatives. But then the fertility rate began to drop and in 2025 it had fallen to 1.31, not much higher than when these incentives first launched.

"Judged by the aims of the policies, this is clearly a failure," says Tomas Sobotka, from the Vienna Institute of Demography.

So why did Hungary's pronatalist approach deliver an early rise in births only then to fall back? And what lessons does it offer to other countries desperate to lift fertility?

Pronatalist policies in Hungary

One view is that Hungary's statistics point to a success. With fertility falling across Europe over the past decade, they argue the country's policies may have staved off even greater decline.

Fruzsina Skrabski, of the pro-family NGO Three Princes, Three Princesses, believes without these policies "there would be hundreds of thousands of fewer children". She is "certain it led to more children being born, just not enough to reverse the trend".

Maté, 43, and Agi Gorondy, 37, who live in the suburbs of Budapest, wholeheartedly agree. They have five children all under 10 years old - and say they may have more - and they credit Hungary's family-friendly environment. The couple took advantage of generous maternity pay, interest-free baby loans and subsidies to help renovate their house and buy a bigger car. Maté, a freelance business developer, benefits from tax cuts. And as a mother of more than two children, Agi will pay no income tax at all if she returns to work.

"I think there's been a change in the past 16 years. In this neighbourhood… four- or five-child families are no longer rare," Maté says. Statistically there was an increase in families with three or more children in Hungary in the 2010s, peaking in 2020 at 146,000. By 2024 that was down to 125,000.

"In this neighbourhood… four or five-child families are no longer rare," Mate says

Timothy P Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has written several books on…