1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

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

In 1980 the proportion of active earners in the population was highest - similarly to 1970 - in the age group 25-39. This the population which already completed the regular studies, and there are very few disabled among them, so this population is the most able to work. 98 percent of the 25-39 year old men are employed and this indicates the practical full employment of men. The effect of factors which decreased the economic activity of the population could be observed first of all in the younger and in the older age groups. Besides the prolongation of education the child-care-allowance had also an effect on the economic activity of the young. Because of the spreading of further education in the case of 15-19 year old men there was a strong decrease (from 57 percent to 46 percent) in the proportion of active earners, in the 20-24 age group the decrease was more moderate (from 95 percent to 92 percent). Among the 15-24 year old men the proportion of those who continue education has been rising since 1960. The employment of the 25-29 year old men - similarly to twenty years ago - can be considered full. The proportion of dependants is not considerable in neither age group of the 15-29 year old men, the proportion of dependants was stagnating in the past twenty years in this age group. The decreasing effect of child-care-allowance on economic activity was strongest in the group of the 20-24 year old women. Their employment level - accounting for those on child-care-allowance is now 89 percent, while two decades earlier it was 55 percent. Besides among the 20-24 year old women the proportion of those who continue education rose more than two and a half fold in the past ten years. In 1960 the majority (51 percent) of the 25-29 year old women stayed in the household, but in 1970 this proportion was still 21 percent, now their proportion is only 7 percent. This also means that the employment level in this age group is 93 percent which is the highest and exceeds the proportion of active earners which is 70 percent in this group. With such calculation (in the employment level we count those on child-care-allowance) the employment level rises from 83 percent to 90 percent among the 30-39 year old women. Within the working age in the age groups over 40 the greater frequency of disablement and earlier pensionings because of health problems have grave effect on the proportion of active earners. 38 percent of those over the pension age worked as active earner in 1960, but ten years earlier this proportion was still one fifth, since then their proportion fell back to 6 percent in the case of men and to 8 percent iri the case of women because of reasons already mentioned. The proportion of active earners in the population by main age groups and sex Age group (year) Active earners Age group (year) Men Women Age group (year) In the proportion of the respective age and sex Age group (year) 1960 1970 1980 1960 1970 1980 15-19 57. 2 54. 8 45. 5 48. 1 49. 1 40.4 20-24 94. 5 91. 5 91.9 55. 2 66. 2 59. 9 25-29 98. 9 98. 5 98. 2 48. 7 65. 3 69.8 30-39 98. 9 98. 3 98. 1 49. 9 69. 9 83. 0 40-54 97. 6 95. 3 91.6 49. 0 64. 3 75. 8 55-59 93.4 84. 4 72. 2 30. 6 29. 2 18. 8 60-64 69. 6 43. 7 13.2 26. 1 17.1 8. 7 65-X 57. 0 16.7 3. 9 20.7 5. 8 3.2 The composition of active earners by highest education became more advantageous between 1960 and 1980, this comes from the general improvement of education and from the turning to inactive of the older and lower educated groups. The most impressive progress took place among the secondary and higher educated. The proportion of the former grew threefold the proportion of the later grew two-and-a-half-fold among the active earners in the course of the past twenty years. The growth in the number of higher educated active earners was stronger in the seventies than in the sixties (the number of secondary educated grew by 477 thousand in the seventies contrary to the 348 thousand growth in the sixties, the number of higher educated grew by 155 thousand in the seventies and by 106 thousand in the sixties). In 1980 for more than one fifth of the active earners secondary school meant the highest education, contrary to the 7 percent rate twenty years earlier and to the 14 percent rate in 197a The dynamic 94