Hungary's population to fall below 10 million
By Gyorgy Folk and Endre Babus
BRUSSELS and BUDAPEST - There is no consensus between demographic experts when exactly Hungary's population will shrink under 10 million. But they - including the researchers from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) - agree that this moment is likely to come in the following weeks. To get a definitive answer, experts have to wait for the results of next year's census. In fact, the census might show an even lower number.
It is quite possible that the original forecast of 9.98 million inhabitants by October 2011 will be disproved by the actual outcome of the census, which is now expected to show a figure of around 9.7 million. Iren Godi, an expert at the KSH, wrote in a recent research document that the 10 million population is probably an optimistic vision in Hungary. Tiborne Pongracz, the vice-director of the Population Research Institute, told the HVG weekly that according to her estimates, Hungary already has less than 10 million people but that Hungarians are unaware of the fact.
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The country's population turned from a seven to an eight digit figure exactly 50 years ago in 1960. Hungary's population - on the basis of today's borders - was after the first and the second World Wars 8 million and 9.2 million. Between 1961 and 1980 the figure rose to 10.7 million, but ever since it has been shrinking.
More and more researchers think that on present trends there will be only around 8.5 million Hungarians in the country by the middle of the 21st century.
Aside from the long term prognosis, the more pressing question is how can the population shrink by 300,000 people in the short-term?
The answer has a lot to do with emigration statistics. Until recently, officials subtracted only those few Hungarians who told the authorities that they are leaving the country. But European migration statistics show a different picture. According to them, every year tens of thousands of Hungarians leave, principally for economic reasons. Statistics in, mainly, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Spain show that between 2001 and 2007 around 187,000 Hungarians left their motherland to work there.
Adding in migration to locations outside Europe, around 300,000 Hungarians said "goodbye" in the last decade. The number of Hungarians leaving is not balanced out by the number of people coming in from abroad.
Politicians worry that the number of Hungarians will shrink even further because of the decreasing birth rate. In 1960 about 146,000 Hungarians were being born each year. By 1990 this had fallen to 126,000. Today the figure is around 96,000 and could fall as low as 70,000 in the coming years.