Social care protection

At the beginning of 2025, 2 million 413 thousand people in Hungary were entitled to a pension or other pension-like benefit, and 77% of the beneficiaries received an old-age pension over retirement age. Those receiving a pension or other benefits received an average of 222 thousand forints as full benefits. The average amount of old-age pension was 242 thousand forints, with men's benefits more than 39 thousand forints higher than women's, due to the typically longer service time and higher earnings.

Over 1 million people received the family allowance based on subjective rights in 2023. The role of child care benefit among family protection benefits is growing, thanks also to the increased possibility to work while receiving child care benefit. Almost 117,000 children were registered at risk, of whom 30,000 minors were taken into protection by the guardianship authorities, which is the highest number in the last 10 years. The focus shifted from children’s home to foster care, with a significant increase in the role of churches as maintainers.

The yearbook provides an overview of Hungary's demographic, social and economic processes, environmental characteristics and their changes over time, with the help of tens of thousands of data of 500 tables, graphs and maps. Innovatively, the Tourism, catering chapter in the volume includes the gross receipts of tourist accommodation establishments by type of accommodation. Another change is that this year the Regional data chapter already presents territorial data by tourism area, giving greater emphasis to tourist destinations.

Geopolitical tensions continued to overshadow economic developments in 2023, with the gross domestic product falling by 0.9%. Inflationary pressures gradually eased, but the 17.6% annual increase in consumer prices led to a decline in real earnings and consumption, and negatively affected investment decisions. Despite the economic difficulties, employment has reached a record high. In 2023, the number of deaths and births continued to fall, in addition to the decrease in the number of women of childbearing age.