1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

VII. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE SOCIETY

HOUSEHOLDS The social-economic changes in the seventies were not of such large extent to induce mass social mobility, so the class and stratum structure of the households changed also only moderately. The considerable re stratification in earlier decades indicates the openness of our society, since -considering the four fundamental groups of our class structure - there had been a decrease in the proportion of the homogeneous households (a household is homogeneous if its active earner members belong to the same social class or stratum). At the same time there had been a slight increase in the proportion of heterogeneous households; it occurres more and more frequently that children of working class parents choose professional career, it is also frequent that manuals marry nonmanuals or peasant households become heterogeneous by the nonagricultural occupation of the children. In the course of the seventies not much happened in the class and stratum composition of the households. There was a slight increase in the proportion of households headed by working classmembers, professionals and routine nonmanuals. The proportion of cooperative peasant households decreased and the proportion of selfemployed households stagnated. On the basis of the stratification of the active earner heads of households, at present almost 60 percent of the households belong to the working class, 13 percent belong to the cooperative peasantry, 25 percent belong to the professionals and routine nonmanuals and 3 percent belong to the selfemployed. The households, the members of the households, and the average size of the households by the class or stratum of the active earner head of the household The class and stratum Household Members of Number of perof the head of household Household household sons per 100 households of the head of household percentage sons per 100 households Working class 58. 8 60. 5 328 Cooperative peasant 13. 0 14. 1 347 Professionals and routine nonmanuals 25. 2 22. 7 288 Selfemployed 3. 0 2.7 293 Total 100. 0 100. 0 319 At present 72 percent of the households with active earners are homogeneous households, which means that the members of the household belong to the same social stratum. In 28 percent of the households the members belong to different social strata. We must not forget that the number of households with only one active earner member is considerable (891 259), and these households obviously belong to the homogeneous households. 38 percent of the households with two active earner members are heterogeneous, the proportion of heterogeneous households among households with three or more active earner members is about 60 percent. The stratification of households with active earner by the number of active earners (percentage) Homogeneous Heterogeneous Total 72. 4 27. 6 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 62. 0 38. 0 100. 0 40.2 59. 8 100. 0 It is characteristic for the social composition of the households, that the homogeneous working class households constitute the largest group (43 percent), although their proportion has not changed in the past decades. The second largest group is the homogeneous professional and routine nonmanual households (20 percent), their propo tion slightly rose in the seventies. Among the homogeneous households the cooperative peasant and selfemployed households' proportion decreased in the past decade. The most frequent heterogeneous households are the working class cum professional or routine nonmanual composition households, their proportion is 16 percent among the households with active earners. The proportion of working class - cooperative peasant composition households is also considerable. 117