The Budapest Demographic Summit, an event put on by the Hungarian government every two years since 2015, has been an important issue for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He has hosted world leaders such as former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Orbán himself is also a regular speaker at the conference where he often talks about one of the primary goals of his government: to have more Hungarians in Hungary.

“We are here, because (…) we want to shape the demographic processes,” he said at the summit in 2021.

According to a comprehensive data analysis by Direkt36, Viktor Orbán is failing to achieve his goal. In fact, Hungary’s population of Hungarian citizens is in a steady decline.

Shrinking populations are a problem for many developed nations, posing numerous economic and societal consequences, such as labor shortages and decreasing tax revenues. While in many cases, decreasing birth rates are the primary cause of shrinking populations, Hungary’s problem is compounded – in addition to record low birth rates, emigration from the country is also increasing.

Based on data from Eurostat, compiled by Direkt36, Hungarians emigrating from Hungary to other European Union nations constituted 37.8% of the nation’s population decline between 2014 and 2024. Hungary is failing in the competition against other European nations to keep its citizens.

According to Balázs Kapitány, a demographics expert, even a population shrinkage of even 1% a year is measurably damaging to the economy. In the Hungarian countryside, in places like Békes County, the effects of emigration can be felt already. “If a town with a planned population of 60,000 has only 20,000 inhabitants, it will become unsustainable after a while,” said Kapitány.

Bence Balogh, a Hungarian from Békes County who currently works in procurement for a biotech company in the Netherlands, said that his motivation for leaving the country is straightforward: people working in other EU countries “make much more money, have a much different experience in life, and have many more opportunities.”

Others interviewed by Direkt36 cited different reasons for leaving the country.

Eszter Rehó, a 21-year-old undergraduate student from Győr studying social science, political science, and international relations at Sciences Po in France, said that she would not return to Hungary while the current government is in place.

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Another risk for Hungary, besides overall population decline, is that the country is losing its most talented citizens, a problem known as “brain drain.” According to the Eurostat data for student nationalities, there has been a significant increase in Hungarians studying abroad from 2013 to 2022.

The Hungarian government did not respond to questions by Direkt36.

More than a third of population decline is explained by emigration

The data used in our analysis describes the number of Hungarian nationals who are residents of other EU countries from 2014 to 2024. The countries self-report this data, meaning that there is some margin of error. It also does not account for Hungarians who may have moved abroad without registering their new country as their official residence.

Additionally, this analysis excludes Poland, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Switzerland, Greece, and Ireland, for which there is not consistent data over this time frame. It also excludes the United Kingdom and the United States, major immigration hotspots, meaning that the effect of the Hungarian exodus is likely even more impactful on Hungarian population decline than our analysis shows.

The UK, despite not having data available in the same time frame that would enable it to be brought directly into this analysis, responded to Direkt36’s request for data regarding its population of Hungarian citizens based on its most recent censuses. England, for instance, has seen its Hungarian population increase from 47,167 to 63,984 between 2011 and 2021, an increase of 35.6% despite Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

If the UK was able to be included in our analysis, the impact of intra-European migration on Hungarian population decline would be significantly more dramatic. Regardless of these omissions from our central analysis, just migration within the EU has had a dramatic impact on Hungarian society and its economy, leading to the countries’ increased reliance on foreign “guest workers,” and its aging population.

Immigrating to another EU country is bureaucratically straightforward for Hungarians. Hungary is in the EU and within the Schengen zone, meaning that Hungarians do not need to apply for any type of visa to relocate and work in these foreign countries. While the population of Hungarians in Hungary has declined, the population of Hungarians in Europe (excluding Hungary) has increased by nearly 141,997, a growth of more than 60% from 2014 to 2024.

In particular, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands have seen their population of Hungarian citizens increase substantially in the last ten years. Germany has seen a 41.4% growth of its Hungarian population from 2014 to 2024, with nearly 55,000 new Hungarian residents.   Austria, in the same period, has seen a 131.8% increase, 61,000 new Hungarian residents, and the Netherlands has seen a 119.3% increase, over 12,000 new residents.

The Hungarian government, perhaps in recognition of the severity of the Hungarian exodus, created an initiative in 2015 called “Come Home, Young People,” aimed at enticing Hungarians living abroad to move back. It was scrapped by 2016 as it only managed to bring 105 young people despite a budget of 100 million forints (245,000 euros), according to Hungarian media outlet HVG. Efforts to bring Hungarians home have been unsuccessful, leading demographics experts to wonder if more could be done to prevent people wanting to leave in the first place.

Ágnes Hárs, lead researcher at the Kopint-Tárki Economic Research Institute, told Direkt36 that one of the main reasons for emigration is “the lack of prosperity and perspective.” She added that emigration trends could slow significantly in Hungary if politics and the economy offered workers and students similar prospects to those in other European countries — that is, if they promised more tangible and immediate opportunities within the country.

The graph,  again relying on data from Eurostat, show that the age distribution of Hungarians living abroad in Europe skews younger than the Hungarian population in Hungary itself.

“Young adults are leaving, which is normal, as they find it easier to take jobs abroad,” said Kapitány. Until the jobs at home are as satisfactory as jobs abroad, Hungary can expect to see its labor shortages persist as young people will continue to move abroad.

Hárs emphasized that this has economic consequences, as the proportion of people living on retirement pensions is increasing compared to working citizens. The decline in the number of working-age residents means that fewer people are paying taxes, while more elderly citizens are dependent on government policy. This causes problems for retirees, increases the poverty of the elderly, and places a greater burden on workers, who have to pay more taxes, Hárs said.

“The absence of those who have left the country and are working abroad is significant and measurable in the domestic labor market. However, the possibilities for attracting them back are limited, and in a broader sense, growing and successful economic development could be one attractive means of encouraging those living abroad to return,”

Hárs wrote in his latest research, which appeared in the new volume of the Társadalmi Riport (Social Report) series. “It is only in such an environment that successful support programs for returnees can be formulated,” she explained.

“Hungary is where my heart belongs.”

Those who already found a comfortable life abroad may be difficult to lure back.

Bence Balogh is 34 years old and grew up in a small town in Békés county in the Southeast of Hungary, and now lives in Maastricht, Netherlands. Growing up, he had a close-knit community. His town was quite small, his grandparents lived close-by, and in many ways, he had an idyllic childhood. As an adult, however, his feelings towards his home started to change.

After attending university in Szeged to study economics and business management, Balogh entered the Hungarian workforce in Budapest. He started an internship at a large company and was on the path towards a successful career. It was at this point, when he was settled into a stable track, that he started to question his decisions.

The salaries were also significantly lower for Hungarian based workers, Balogh noticed. Within his company, people based in Hungary, doing the same job, will make less than their colleagues based in Germany.

So, he decided to leave the country, moving to Frankfurt through his work and joining the ranks of his German colleagues. From there, he moved to the Netherlands and has been there ever since. Balogh has found the workplace culture to be better, the salaries higher, and the quality of life is higher than in Hungary, he said.

Balogh’s wife is Hungarian, and she sometimes dreams about moving back to Hungary to be closer to family. Balogh too misses having his family around, the close-knit community that he grew up in, especially now that he has a young daughter. His career opportunities in the Netherlands are “unbelievable” compared to what awaits him back home, and so he feels that staying is really the only option.

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For some Hungarians who leave the country, their adopted homes can become a gilded cage. That’s the case for 30-year-old Fruzsina Szabó, who currently lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. Similar to Balogh, she speaks of her childhood in Herend with fondness. “It was very idyllic,” she said. She also moved to Budapest for her undergraduate education at ELTE before moving abroad for her master’s degree in geology.

Denmark offered free education that was far superior to the master’s programs that were available in Hungary, she said. In Hungary, she found geology instruction to be overly theoretical and the equipment to be outdated. The programs offered in Denmark were more comprehensive and better respected. Additionally, there were social benefits for pursuing an education – a stipend of around 5,000 krone per month, more than 269,000 forints.

It was an obvious move for her future, she said. Now, she has been in Denmark for almost six years. She has learned Danish and works as a hydrogeologist for a consulting company, advising clients on construction projects.

Despite her success, she misses Hungary and wishes she could return. All but one of her three older brothers have moved abroad. The one who remained has children, and she is the godmother of his young daughter. She regrets that she can’t be more present in her niece’s life since she lives abroad. Additionally, her parents are getting older and, with so much of her family living abroad, being far away from them, and all of her other family members and friends, is a source of sadness. Hungary is “where my heart belongs,” she said.

Returning to Hungary is not a simple matter, however. She has tried, applying to jobs in Hungary, and even receiving a job offer. The salary she was offered was not enough to live in Budapest. She doesn’t own an apartment there, and between rent and the cost of living, she could not see a way to make it work. Her life in Denmark is good, her needs are met. But she longs for home and there seems to be nothing she can do about it.

Balogh cannot see himself returning to Hungary either, for the same reasons as Szabo. Family, home, patriotism, or any other force that may prompt a return home is often, by necessity, a less powerful force than financial security and career advancement.

The best and the brightest

Another potential result of the Hungarian exodus is brain drain, the country losing its most talented.

Looking at the Eurostat data for student nationalities, the amount of Bachelor’s students from Hungary attending university in the EU (excluding Hungary) increased by 83.5 percent between 2013 and 2022, to more than 6,400. The number of students enrolled in master’s programs rose by 36 percent to more than 4,000.

These numbers are still small compared to the number conducting their studies in Hungary, but they are steadily increasing. Additionally, the number of PhD students abroad is significant as there were nearly 800 people conducting their PhD research in other EU countries in 2023. The same year, only 2122 people began their PhD research in Hungary, according to Hungarian government data. This is a significant loss and does not even account for the Hungarian students doing their PhD research outside of the European Union, in the U.K. and the U.S, two popular destinations for students globally.

The danger for Hungary is that talented young people no longer see Hungary as a viable place to achieve their ambitions. This is the case for Eszter Rehó, a 21-year-old undergraduate student studying social science, political science, and international relations at Sciences Po. She has always been an ambitious student, testing into a selective school in Győr where she grew up. From there, she set her sights on attending Sciences Po in France.

As a young student, she had the ambition to “make the world a better place” by helping the poor. With the vague and heartfelt ambitions of a teenager, she wanted to be in an international environment in order to best confront the world’s problems. She felt that Hungary “was not the place for that.” Sciences Po is the highest ranked university for the study of politics in Europe, according to QS World University Ranking. It also provides need-based aid, allowing her to complete her studies without paying for tuition. Now, in the last semester of her bachelor’s education, studying abroad in Washington D.C., she plans to return to Sciences Po to pursue a masters in economic law.

At Sciences Po, Rehó stressed that she received an education rooted in critical thinking. Through this, her understanding of Hungary changed. Initially, she left Hungary feeling frustrated with Hungarians. She didn’t like the government and felt frustrated with Hungarians, who voted for Fidesz. Through her education, she recognized the “manipulation of the media, propaganda, et cetera, that plays into having this government that we have.”

This insight, which she says she was able to gain because of her education abroad, may not have been possible if she had studied in Hungary where higher education in her field tends to prioritize memorization, she said. She has seen this difference in curriculum between herself and peers who study the same subjects at Hungarian universities.

Now, with her comprehensive education, Rehó feels conflicted. “The more time I spend abroad, the more I feel like I have a responsibility to give back the knowledge that I have,” she said. At the same time, her motivation has remained the same from her early education, to help the world, which, she noted, is not limited to Hungary. She feels a conflict between “what I want to do with what I feel like I have a responsibility of doing,” unsure about whether the best use of her education is in Hungary or the world at large.

When asked, more practically, if she plans to move back to Hungary, she said simply, “not under this government.” If there was a change of government, she would consider it, but she is “still not sure.”

Rehó’s feelings are parroted by other young Hungarians living abroad. Anna Házas, who is 23 years old and grew up in Budapest, recently graduated from Amsterdam University College, where she studied liberal arts and sciences. She recently completed a traineeship for the European Parliament in Budapest and plans to move abroad again to pursue her master’s, having recently earned admission into Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs as well as Diplomatische Akademie in Vienna.

With her education and experience, she similarly feels conflicted. “I would love to live in Hungary eventually, you know, but not when it’s impossible or not at the cost of my happiness, not at the cost of everything that I worked and studied for.” For talented young people like Reho and Házas, they fear their comprehensive education, and the ideas they have developed by studying abroad, would be futile in the current Hungarian government, and they would have no ability to impact proceedings. The political situation creates a conflict in the loyalty they feel and the work they want to do. “It’s a big dilemma I have right now,” Házas said.

This incompatibility of ambition and the political situation in Hungary, is shared with older Hungarians as well. Péter Varga, who is now forty-five years old, attended Yale University for his undergraduate education in 2000. He returned to Hungary after graduating, just when Hungary was joining the European Union in 2004. It was a period of optimism, he said, and felt “eager” to help his country. Upon his return, he worked in civil society organizations focused on sustainability and social enterprise development. He also earned a master’s degree from Central European University.

After returning with high hopes and being engaged in work that he understood to be in service of bettering the nation, Varga lost hope after Fidesz rose to power. “Things were no longer going according to the high hopes I had when I moved back in 2004,” he said. “The country was now going in the exact opposite direction of what I wanted it to go.”

Over time, after years of resisting the government agenda, he realized “I can’t necessarily live in a country that’s stifling dissent to such a degree.” He moved to Berlin to work for Transparency International, and lives there to this day. He now works for the Open Government Partnership in anti-corruption efforts. “I love Hungary, I love Budapest, I think it’s one of the best cities in Europe,” he said, but feels that his work has no place within it without a change in government.

Isolated researchers

In Hungary’s current state, civil organizations that rely even partially on foreign funds, such as those that Varga has devoted his career to, are often targeted through the ​​Law on the Protection of National Sovereignty and labelled as foreign agents working to undermine Hungarian interests. This has fostered a hostile environment for public sector work in Hungary that results in people like Varga choosing to leave the country.

Due to the expulsion of CEU and the restructuring of Hungarian higher education, Hungary was excluded from the Erasmus and Horizon Europe research programs. According to Ágnes Hárs, this was a dramatic development, as Hungarian students, researchers and educators committed to continuing research in Hungary became even more isolated than before.

According to Attila Melegh, sociologist and professor at Corvinus University, Hungarian students face difficulties. Melegh believes that the exclusion of Hungarian academic institutions from European education and research programs has resulted in fewer opportunities for students to study abroad. Instead of Erasmus, which has been operating in Hungary for more than 20 years with European Union funding, the Pannonia Program remains, which was created by the government after foundation-run universities were excluded from Erasmus. According to information from Népszava, the Pannonia Program has significantly underperformed the government’s expectations, as while approximately 10,000 Hungarian students participated in the Erasmus+ program (the expanded Erasmus program) in 2023, only slightly more than 3,000 students traveled abroad with Pannonia in half a year.

According to Melegh, we can assume that in some cases, students are already choosing to study abroad even during their undergraduate studies.

“The growing isolation of the Hungarian academic world may prompt students and researchers to stay abroad for longer,” he said.

There will always be those who decide to leave their homeland. They are motivated to seek something new and are interested in the culture and opportunities of other countries, as opposed to those offered by Hungary. However, according to Melegh, Hungary can do something to improve these factors. He believes that it would be possible to redistribute state resources, i.e., to rethink how taxes are spent, to develop educational institutions in a more thoughtful manner, to make social welfare more comprehensive, to further stabilize the Hungarian labor market, and to eliminate exploitative jobs.

“Basically, employees need to feel good and receive quality wages at home,” he explained.