1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

V. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYMENT, CHANGE IN THE COMPOSITION OF ACTIVE EARNERS

V. The development of employment, change in the composition of active earners THE ECONOMIC ACTIVITY OF THE POPULATION On the first of January 1980 47 percent of the 10 million 710 thousand population of our country were active earner, 21 percent belonged to the inactive earner category (pensioners, child-care-allowance), and 32 percent were dependant. In the course of the past ten years since 1970 the number of active earners rose moderately by 80 thousand, the number of inactive earners rose strongly by 807 thousand, and the number of dependants fell considerably by 500 thousand. At the turn of the century more than two fifths of the country's population were active earners, at the same time the number of inactive earners hardly exceeded 1 percent, and the majority (58 percent) were dependant. In the course of the past eight decades, as a result of the various often contradictive social-economic changes, the number of active earners rose almost by 80 percent, the number of inactive earners rose almost thirtyfold, and the number of dependánts fell by 13 percent. The earlier rapid growth in the number of active earners slowed down in the seventies, in fact at the mid of the decade the tendency of growth was replaced by a moderate decrease. At the beginning of 1980 the proportion of active earners was under the 1970 and even the 1960 level. The decrease was the result of many effects. On the one hand there was no more mobilizable labour reserve in the past decade and the number of people getting into the working age was fewer year by year, and among them grew the proportion of those who went on for further education. On the other hand as a result of the expansion of the upper age limit, grew the number and proportion of the old, and so the proportion of pensioners. This process was strengthened by the lowering of the pension age in many cases, the continuous growth of the number of disability pensioners, the lowering of the higher pension age of the agricultural cooperative workers. The widening of child-care-allowance also had a decreasing effect on the number of active earners. The young mothers on child-care-allowance belong essentially to the active population because their inactivity is only temporary. So in course of the analysis it is better to count those on child-careallowance to the active population. In 1980 the number of active earners and those on child-care-allowancé was 5 million 350 thousand, 220 thousand more than 10 years earlier. In 1980 the proportion of this group was 50 percent, which was similar to the 197 0 proportion, so the employment level did not fall in the seventies but stagnated. The other half of the population consisted of the pensioners (the so-called other inactive earners whose number in 1980 was 5 thousand was counted into this category) and of various groups of dependants. The proportion of pensioners in the whole population rose from 12 percent to 18 percent since 1970, and at the same time the proportion of dependants fell from 38 percent to 32 percent. The composition of the population by economic activity Year Population Active earner Inactive earner Dependant Number in 1 000 1960 9 961 4 760 436 4 765 1970 10 322 4 989 1 395 3 938 1980 10 709 5 069 2 202 3 438 Percentage distribution 1960 100.0 47.8 4.4 47.8 1970 100.0 48.3 13.5 38.2 1980 100.0 47.3 20.6 32.1 Previous census=

100 1960 108.2 116.5 171.4 97.9 1970 103.6 104.8 319.6 82.6 1980 103.8 101.6 157.8 87.3 91