Zsolt Spéder

• PhD
• Chief Scientific Advisor at Hungarian Demographic Research Institute

Despite ample research on behavioral aspects of the transition to adulthood, few comparative studies have focused on “subjective” facets. Using data from the European Social Survey, we probe similarities and differences in conceptions of adulthood for men and women in twenty-five European countries. We examine perceptions of the age of adulthood an...

Our paper focuses on the realization of fertility intentions, exploring a new aspect of the post-communist fertility transition. By making use of a follow-up study, it was possible to compare five European countries and to analyze the chances of realizing short-term, time-dependent fertility intentions. There is always a difference between intentio...

It is well known that participation in education is incompatible with the transition to motherhood. However, enrolment is overwhelmingly treated as a single status even though participation in education may be combined with employment— resulting in double-status positions, and the fertility implications of double-status positions are less clear-cut...

Following steep falls in birth rates in Central and Eastern European countries during the economic and institutional restructuring of the early 1990s, governments made substantial efforts to stop or at least reduce the fertility decline. In Hungary, parents with three or more children could benefit from specific new policy measures: the flat-rate c...

At the time of transformation in Hungary, poverty was one of the most discussed public questions. This paper focuses mainly on the longitudinal aspect of poverty. It describes the development of the poverty figures by the application of different poverty concepts. The dual nature of poverty is shown with the help of the Hungarian Household Panel. N...

Jelen tanulmánykötet a Kohorsz ’18 kutatás harmadik adatfelvételi hullámának, a kohorsz kutatásban részt vevő gyermekek másfél éves korában lezajlott adatfelvételének a technikai kutatási beszámolója. A Kohorsz ’18 kutatási sorozat jelentései közül ez a nyolcadik. Az előkészítő szakaszban jelent meg a kutatás elméleti koncepciójának és az előkészít...

This is the first large-scale comparative study to search for macro-level determinants of the realization of short-term fertility intentions across European countries. Using the unique follow-up feature of the Generations and Gender Survey and adopting rigorous definitions of intentions and outcomes, it reports on the level of fulfilment and finds...

The population of the Cohort ’18 Growing Up In Hungary consists of children born in Hungary and their families in the period between 1 April 2018 and 30 April 2019. The second wave of data collection in the longitudinal study was based on a repeat survey of those women who had previously been interviewed while pregnant, this time 6 months after the...

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...

A kiadványt, kérjük, a következőképpen hivatkozza: Ökrös Fruzsina, Boros Julianna, Fábián Ildikó, Kapitány Balázs, Kis Réka, Kopcsó Krisztina, Sándor Nikolett Gabriella, Šindýlková Zsófia, Spéder Zsolt, Szabados Dániel, Szabó Laura, Veroszta Zsuzsanna (2023). Jelentés az Anyai Munkavállalás Vizsgálatról. Kohorsz ’18 Magyar Születési Kohorszvizsgála...

Elemzésünkben a Magyarországon, Szlovákiában, Romániában és Szerbiában élő roma nők kohorsz termékenységét hasonlítjuk össze a nők iskolai végzettsége szerint a 2011. évi népszámlálási adatok segítségével. Továbbá megvizsgáljuk Magyarországon a termékenység és a nemzetiség közötti kapcsolatot olyan nők körében, akiknek eltérő az iskolai végzettsége...

Please cite the publication as follows: Veroszta, Zsuzsanna – Boros, Julianna – Kapitány, Balázs – Kopcsó, Krisztina – Leitheiser, Fruzsina – Sándor, Nikolett Gabriella – Szabó, Laura – Spéder, Zsolt (2022). Infancy in Hungary. Report on the Second Wave of Cohort ’18 – Growing Up in Hungary. Working Papers on Population, Family and Welfare, No. 40....

A kiadványt, kérjük, a következőképpen hivatkozza: Veroszta Zsuzsanna, Boros Julianna, Kapitány Balázs, Kopcsó Krisztina, Leitheiser Fruzsina, Sándor Nikolett Gabriella, Szabó Laura, Spéder Zsolt (2022). Csecsemőkor Magyarországon. Jelentés a Kohorsz ’18 Magyar Születési Kohorszvizsgálat 2. hullámáról. Kutatási Jelentések 106. KSH Népességtudományi...

This volume describes the main findings of the first wave of the Cohort ’18 - Growing Up In Hungary longitudinal study. Full text available at: https://demografia.hu/en/publicationsonline/index.php/workingpapers/article/view/975

A kötet az alábbi linken érhető el: https://demografia.hu/kiadvanyokonline/index.php/kutatasijelentesek/article/view/2841

This volume presents the results of the Cohort ’18 Hungarian Birth Cohort Study as the third output in the research series. The first contained the theoretical, methodological and organizational tasks preceding the prenatal data collection wave. The second volume presented the theoretical background and the conceptualization of the Cohort ’18 Hunga...

We analyse Roma fertility in four neighbouring countries in Central and Eastern Europe with a large Roma minority: in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia. The sources of data are the respective national population censuses from 2011. Fertility is measured at the birth cohort level as the average number of children ever born. We make an internatio...

Leíró demográfiai elemzési eszközökkel mutatjuk be, hogy az elmúlt negyedszázadban hazánkban megtapasztalt termékenységcsökkenés a termékenységi gyakorlat átfogó megváltozásának az eredménye. A teljes kép felrajzolásához elengedhetetlen a jól ismert változás, a halasztás bemutatása, ám túllépünk azon, hogy a mintaváltást kizárólag a korai gyermekvá...

Cohort ’18 Growing Up in Hungary is a longitudinal birth cohort study run by the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute that will follow the lives of more than 8,000 children from before birth. The purpose of this countrywide representative study is to provide an overview of child development in Hungary and the factors influencing it. The main ar...

We analyse Roma fertility in four neighbouring countries in Central and Eastern Europe with a large Roma minority: in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia. The sources of data are the respective national population censuses from 2011. Fertility is measured at the birth cohort level as the average number of children ever born. We make an internatio...

Jelen kötetben kutatásunk első hullámának, a várandós adatfelvételnek a módszertanát és a lekérdezés, illetve adatfeldolgozás technikai hátterét mutatjuk be. A Kohorsz ’18 rövid bemutatása után a mintavételről, a minta lefedettségéről és a nyers adatok megbízhatóságáról írunk. Ezt követi a terepmunka részletes leírása, bemutatva a felhasznált kérdő...

A tanulmány bemutatja az elmúlt száz év népesedési folyamatait, a termékenység, a pár-kapcsolatok, a halandóság, a nemzetközi vándorlás, a népességszám és a korstruktúra alakulását. Noha a világháborúk, a gazdasági válságok, a politikai változások és a népesedéspolitika erőfe-szítései mind formálták a népesedési viszonyokat, az évszázados átalakulá...

The Demographic Research Institute of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office launched a birth cohort study entitled ‘Growing Up in Hungary – Cohort '18’, which follows children born in Hungary in 2018 and 2019 on a large nationally representative sample. The main objective of the research program is to provide a comprehensive overview of child de...

Post-communist governments in Hungary made serious efforts to stop the massive fertility decline that started with the fall of the communist reproductive system, or at least to reduce it. Two of several interventions by the Hungarian government – the lengthening of child-raising allowance (‘full time motherhood’) and of a new tax-relief system –, w...

In the period following the Second World War, Hungary was the first country in Europe in which the total fertility rate (TFR) fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman (in 1962), and as of 2013, Hungary’s TFR was still among the lowest in Europe. The period in between these two dates was characterized by considerable fertility fluc...

This study aims to provide an insight into fertility decision making, concentrating in particular on links between fertility intentions and actual behaviour. Both the discussion of theoretical approaches and the empirical analysis enable us to gain a more accurate insight into the intention–behaviour link. After outlining the underlining Theory of...

This study aims to provide an insight into fertility decision making, concentrating in particular on links between fertility intentions and actual behaviour. Both the discussion of theoretical approaches and the empirical analysis enable us to gain a more accurate insight into the intention–behaviour link. After outlining the underlining Theory of...

This study investigates the realization of time-related positive fertility intentions using a comparative approach. Four European countries of medium size are compared, all with rather different fertility regimes: the Netherlands and Switzerland in western Europe, and Hungary and Bulgaria in the east. Using harmonised data from four panel surveys c...

This study investigates the realization of time-related positive fertility intentions using a comparative approach. Four European countries of medium size are compared, all with rather different fertility regimes: the Netherlands and Switzerland in western Europe, and Hungary and Bulgaria in the east. Using harmonized data from four panel surveys c...

Postponement realization or abandonment of childbearing intentions in four European countries over a three-year period This study investigates the realization of time-related positive fertility intentions using a comparative approach. Four European countries of medium size are compared, all with rather different fertility regimes: the Netherlands a...

This study examines whether social age deadlines exist for childbearing in women and men, how they vary across countries, whether they are lower than actual biological deadlines and whether they are associated with childbearing at later ages and the availability of assisted reproduction techniques (ARTs). This study is based on the European Social...

Our study aims to identify factors that facilitate or inhibit the realization of fertility intentions. The analysis uses data collected in the first two waves of a Hungarian longitudinal survey. Fertility intentions recorded at the first wave pertain to the subsequent 3-year period, just similar to the behavior variable measuring the realization of...

In this study, we demonstrate from different angles that Hungarian fertility basically decreased between 1965 and 2005, but also clearly fluctuated, and showed different patterns in the different periods within this epoch. As a result, the clear communist-era family pattern of “early marriage and childbearing with two children” was replaced, but ne...

The study analyses attitudes towards forms of partnership (marriage, cohabitation, living alone) in twelve European countries using the IPPAS comparative dataset. Basic patterns of partnership behaviour in Europe will be shown in the introduction using census data, after which people’s partnership-related attitudes will be confronted with practices...

The Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) is one of the two pillars of the Generations and Gender Programme designed to improve understanding of demographic and social development and of the factors that influence these developments. This article describes how the theoretical perspectives applied in the survey, the survey design and the questionnaire...

We use survey data from Bulgaria and Hungary to investigate the determinants of whether women intend to have a first or a second child and, if so, whether they intend to have the child within the ensuing 2 years or later. These determinants differ significantly by the order and timing of the intended birth. The variables used include measures of an...

Our study describes fundamental changes in childbearing behavior in Hungary. It documents current postponement of entry into motherhood (first birth) and uncovers signs of delay in second birth. We place the behavioral modifications into historical time and reveal the basic role of the political, economic, and societal transformation of Hungary tha...

The paper uses the Hungarian Generations and Gender Survey ‘Turning Points in the Life-course’ (HGGS) to describe recent changes in union formation, onset of childbearing, leaving home and cohabitation. By estimating survivor functions and semi-parametric hazard regression models with time-varying covariates for the timing of first union and first...

Our study describes fundamental changes in childbearing behavior in Hungary. It documents current postponement of entry into motherhood (first birth) and uncovers signs of delay in second birth. We place the behavioral modifications into historical time and reveal the basic role of the political, economic, and societal transformation of Hungary tha...

A házasságon kívüli együttélés, az élettársi kapcsolatok hazai terjedése, elfogadottsá- gának növekedése minden kétséget kizáróan az elmúlt másfél évtizedben bekövetke- zett demográfiai változások egyik legszembetûnõbb jellegzetessége (Kamarás 1996; Bukodi 2001). E jelenség természetesen nem egyedülálló, hiszen számtalan országban (volt) tapasztalh...

The author summarizes the results of employing a new method, the proportional deprivation index (PDI). The novelty of the approach is the weighting of deficits in specific dimensions. The PDI takes two things into account: the lack of living condition components owing to scarcity of resources and the importance people attach to the lack of these it...

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This paper* sets out to offer new insight into social change, especially social transformation. The authors have drawn up new types of social indicators to encapsulate the nature of social change, with the intention of widening its meaning. The investigation draws on longitudinal panel studies: the German Socio-Economic Panel Study 1990–96 (GSOEP)...

This study aims to explore the characteristic features of the livelihood of households, their daily routine, procedures and strategic elements. At first the relevant literature is surveyed, then the issues raised are tested with the help of the empirical data. It was regarded as particularly important to locate the various household activities in s...

Die umfangreichen Forschungsarbeiten über die Transformation in Ostdeutschland ergeben inzwischen eine eindrucksvolle Bestandsaufnahme über den sozialstrukturellen Wandel und die Veränderungen der Lebensbedingungen der Bürger in Ostdeutschland seit der Vereinigung (vgl. z.B. Glatzer/ Noll 1995, Zapf/Habich 1996 und Diewald/Mayer 1996). Ob in der os...

Since 1962, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office conducted surveys at 5-year intervals for household incomes. The questionnaires inquired in great detail about total monetary income and the consumption from the household’s small-scale agricultural production (the so-called household plots) for the year. The data given by the household on wage i...

Az elmúlt két évtizedben a párkapcsolatok alakulásában és intézményesdettségében mélyreható változások következtek be Magyarországon. Az első párkapcsolatot ma később alakítják ki a fiatalok; csökkent a házasság népszerűsége; általánossá vált, hogy a fiatalok párkapcsolati karrierjüket élettársi kapcsolatban kezdik (ma az első párkapcsolatok hetven...