Increasing fertility is an objective for many countries worldwide, but Hungary’s pro-natal policies have received an outsized amount of attention in recent years. Hungary is unique because its pro-natal policies have been bold and its objectives ambitious.
Since 2010, Hungary has implemented a variety of policies, including zero-interest “baby-expecting” loans and debt forgiveness for couples with children, personal income tax relief for mothers, and housing support for married couples, in an effort to reverse demographic decline.
Hungary spends around 5 percent of GDP on family subsidies, and the OECD ranks Hungary among the top five OECD countries overall in public spending on family benefits.[1] Although there have been a few recent changes to benefits, Hungary’s prime minister continues to signal his commitment to expanding pro-natal policy.
Unlike many countries, which leave their long-term fertility goals ambiguous, Hungary has established more specific goals. Hungary’s current prime minister stated in 2017 that the country’s objective is to raise the total fertility rate (TFR) to replacement level (2.1) by 2030 —an ambitious goal.
Figure 1. Hungary’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR), 2011-2024
Source: Hungarian Central Statistical Office
Initially, Hungary appeared to be making progress towards that goal. Indeed, after the total fertility rate (TFR) cratered to 1.23 in 2011, Hungary’s TFR rose for a period (Figure 1). In 2020, Hungary’s TFR climbed to 1.61, and while the country was not on track to meet its stated objective of raising fertility to replacement level by 2030, fertility was ticking up.
However, TFR has declined since, and Hungary’s more recent numbers look significantly less promising. Hungary’s latest reported total fertility rate for 2024 is 1.39 children, or a -0.12 child change from 2023. With approximately 127,500 deaths and 77,500 births in the same year, the country realized a natural decrease of 50,000. Hungary hasn’t seen a fertility rate this low in more than a decade.
Hungary is not unique in its so far unsuccessful implementation of pro-natal policies aimed at achieving a specific fertility goal. To their credit, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and South Korea have also specified their fertility goals. In all cases except Bulgaria, these countries have failed to meet or maintain their fertility objectives in 2025.
Table 1. Country Fertility Goals and Most Recent Total Fertility Rates
Source: Policy Responses to Low Fertility: How Effective Are They? — United Nations Population Fund. This figure has been updated with the most recent World Bank data. World Bank data extends only to 2023 and omits Hungary’s most recent TFR. Note that UNPF cites 2019 as the date that Hungary established its fertility goal, though this arguably occurred earlier, in 2017 (see text).
Moreover, as of 2025, there are no advanced economies with low fertility that have successfully raised fertility to replacement level in modern history and sustained it there. Israel is the only OECD country with a TFR above replacement, yet Israel never fell below replacement to begin with. It also constitutes a unique cultural and religious exception that places a high societal value on children and family life.
With its latest decline, Hungary doesn’t seem to have achieved a lot from its pro-natal policy efforts. Fertility is trending down, and Hungary is further from meeting its 2030 fertility objective.
So what explains Hungary’s initial fertility bump? One possibility is that the initial fertility increase in Hungary was more of a timing effect, where would-be parents accelerated births in response to the benefit, than a quantum effect (a rise in the overall number of births). Wolfgang Lutz, director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital takes that view of Hungary’s recent trends and has said that previous increases in Hungary “were primarily driven by changing patterns in the timing of births, with a slowdown in the previously strong postponement of childbearing.”
That acceleration in births following the introduction of new benefits would make Hungary’s outcomes like other countries that have implemented fertility incentives. As one example, Russia implemented a generous Maternity Capital program in 2007, shortly before Hungary began its fertility initiatives. Russia’s Maternity Capital program provides a large financial benefit to mothers to fund housing, their children’s education, or their retirement, and continues to this day. The benefit is equivalent to 677,000-894,000 rubles, or the equivalent of 7 months’ income for a typical family with one or two children, respectively.
Figure 2. Russia’s Total Fertility Rate, Before and After Maternity Capital
Source: World Bank
Russian demographers are skeptical about the program’s effects, as TFR was rising before its introduction in 2007. However, total fertility did climb from 1.3 in 2006 to almost 1.8 at its peak in 2015 (Figure 2). One paper published around this time found “modest long-run effects on fertility (about 0.15 children per woman),” though the authors note a substantial portion of initial fertility increases were due to timing effects.
In line with this, following the 2015 peak, Russian TFR began to decline, despite a major 2020 program expansion that made the benefit available to mothers of firstborns and resumed indexing benefits. Today, Russian fertility is looking similar to pre-program fertility. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has undoubtedly put additional downward pressure on births post-2022.
Hungary’s fertility may be following a similar pattern. Still, it’s possible that Hungary’s fertility rates over the last decade have been higher than in the absence of the pro-natal policies. That is, Hungary’s policies may have raised births relative to the counterfactual, just not along the hoped-for trajectory or to the hoped-for level.
If so, tempo and parity-adjusted total fertility—which researchers argue is a better measure of quantum and period fertility than TFR—tells a different story. Using this measure, fertility is more stable between 2010 and 2021. Researchers conclude that Hungary’s “seemingly impressive upturns in the TFR have been largely fueled by a slowdown in the shift to later parenthood” rather than “upturns in cohort fertility or in tempo-adjusted period fertility indicators.”
In other words, under this measure, Hungary’s pro-natal policies are performing worse than TFR would suggest. As some pro-natal policy advocates have noted, Hungary’s policies aren’t necessarily the most effective policies to promote fertility, even setting other considerations aside. For instance, one policy provides a lifetime income tax break for mothers of multiple children. But to qualify for it, a mother must work, which may conflict with having more children.
Optimists argue that more thoughtful pro-natal policies are more successful at increasing the fertility rate. However, Hungary is a good example of a country committed at the highest levels to increasing fertility, which has nonetheless struggled to develop policies to meet its goals. Realists shouldn’t expect perfect policy making to rule the day in the fertility realm, or anywhere else.
Even under ideal conditions, it’s difficult to imagine countries successfully sustaining the required level of spending to achieve replacement level results and overcome other determinants. $250 billion in additional, annual spending is estimated to increase fertility by 0.2 children per woman.
A recent review by economists Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine finds that policies providing income and housing to families have a modest effect on fertility, and paid leave and expanded access to childcare have a small impact on fertility outcomes. They conclude that “a broad reordering of adult priorities with parenthood occupying a diminished role” is to blame for widespread fertility declines, rather than changes in income or prices.
If this is the case, policymakers should take a more cautious view of explicitly pro-natal economic policy and instead consider that changing preferences, norms, social, and cultural factors influence fertility decisions more than government benefits. International evidence suggests that economic policy has a difficult time durably manipulating these factors in favor of higher fertility. Although Hungary has pro-natal leadership and pro-natal policies, its recent outcomes do not look immune to these realities.
[1] The 5 percent figure varies based on the programs included.