Hungarian PM: no tax for Hungarian women with four or more children

His coalition is going to be ever so pleased when they realize how many Roma families will benefit from this tax break: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people_in_Hungary#Demog...

this is part of a wider effort across South-East Europe:

"Hungary, like its central and eastern European neighbours Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and Serbia, have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world, while many educated workers have sought higher salaries further west. According to the United Nations, almost all of the countries with the fastest shrinking populations are in eastern Europe. Hungary’s population is projected to decline 15 per cent by 2050, from 9.7m in 2017 to 8.3m."

"Other countries in the region have also offered incentives to raise the birth rate. In Poland, the conservative Law and Justice party rose to power in 2015 with an expensive pledge giving 500 zlotys (£100) a month, about one-third of the net minimum wage, for every second and subsequent child. The initiative costs more than 1 per cent of Poland’s GDP

Last spring, Serbia, which loses 30,000 people annually, introduced a 500m dinar (£3m) fund to provide payments worth 12,000 dinar for families with three children and 18,000 dinar for the fourth."

from: https://www.ft.com/content/56a5c36a-2d68-11e9-8744-e7016697f...

With the level of education and the reasons most women in a country like Hungary do not have a lot of children, i doubt this amount would make any dent. Although i am unaware of local complexities such amounts only encourage breeding amongst the poorer sections which should not be encouraged.

At the risk of being flagged, it true though that a certain religion has much higher fertility rate than the others and have observed it in very high population countries in South Asia. One, if not the main reason for poverty

Even though Hungary has a great, safe, fun culture, young people who can are running away to Western Europe because of the huge corruption that's going on in Hungary compared to the size of the country.

Don't let the strongly manipulated voting system that favors villages instead of representation in the number of people make you think that Orban is popular. Many people outside Budapest still like him, but more and more people come to realize that power concentrated in one hand is dangerous.

As for me I'm a big believer in decentralization (Bitcoin) helping to solve some of the political problems, but of course there's still a lot to do to undo the centralization that's going on in the judicial system and the media.

I have not been following any news related to Hungary or really anything going on in Eastern Europe, so when I saw the headline I did not understand the motivating factors. I thought that this might be a progressive policy to help out women with a high number of children (and it is), but it is not motivated through benevolence as I thought rather it is a protectionist policy aimed at increasing their population. I was very surprised.