Key issues in the effectiveness of public financial tools to support childbearing the example of Hungary during the COVID-19 crisis

PLoS One. 2022 Aug 16;17(8):e0273090. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273090. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

The propensity to have children, which, according to the view accepted in the literature, is a good predictor of actual childbearing, is of particular importance in countries with low fertility rates and economic prosperity. In this paper, we report the results of a representative survey of 15,700 respondents in 2021 of university students in an emerging market economy in Central Europe, mapping their intentions to have children. The PLS-SEM data analysis method was used to test our hypotheses on the relationships between social, economic, and environmental variables of childbearing. Our results confirm the dominant role of socio-cultural inclusiveness in childbearing, over socio-economic and environmental-economic factors. The novelty of our research lies in the impact analysis of family policy incentives; however, our results are consistent with those documented in the literature, namely, the primacy of socio-cultural factors in the willingness of childbearing.

MeSH terms

  • Birth Rate
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • Child
  • Family Planning Policy*
  • Fertility
  • Humans
  • Hungary / epidemiology
  • Socioeconomic Factors

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.