1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

VII. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE SOCIETY

VII. The social structure of the society ACTIVE EARNERS The alteration of the divisional and occupational structure of the active earners, and the general improvement of their educational and qualificational level had considerable effect on the structure of the society and on the composition of active earners belonging to the various classes and strata. The changes in the social stratification were much more moderate in the seventies than in earlier decades. The number of population in the fundamental classes and strata changed to a lesser extent in the course of the past decade than earlier, social mobility was rather within the strata than between them. In the period between 1970 and 1980 the class- and stratum composition of the active earners was characterized by the followings: - Both the inter- and the intragenerational mobility lessened. As a result of the exhaustion of mobility lessened. As a result of the exhaustion of mobilizable labour force the reproduction of the various classes and strata was recruited from among the young people finishing school, whose number was gradually decreasing in the course of the seventies. The choice of career of the young and so their social position was determined mainly by their educational level and qualification. The shrinking of the source of labour force implied that most of the changes were flows between the strata. - The effect of the economic processes on the social stratification lessened. The intensive restratification process - the outflow from agriculture to industry characteristic of the earlier decades, slowed down. The spread of large scale production in agriculture and the growing secondary activities of the agricultural cooperatives led to growing mobility within the peasantry and so the outflow from the agricultural cooperative peasantry lessened. - The growth of the professional and routine nonmanual strata lessened due to organizational administrative and wage policy measures. The reproduction of these strata came first of all from among young people finishing their studies and not from among active earners of other classes. The lack of mobilizable work force reserves, the decreasing number of the young are drawing the attention to the fact, that economic development can only be ensured by the better utilization of labour, by the implementation of the necessary regroupings. The first signs of this could be observed in the second half of the seventies. As a result of those processes at the beginning of 1980 57 percent of the active earners belonged to the working class. Their number grew only by slightly more than 2 percent since 1970, which is much less than the growth in the previous decade (16 percent). The growth in the number of the professionals and routine nonmanuals was also much slower than earlier: their number rose in the seventies by an annual average 3 percent, contrary to the 5 percent annual average growth in the sixties. In 1980 28 percent of the active earners belonged to this stratum. The most outstanding change happened in the agricultural cooperative peasantry, the number of which decreased at a 3 percent annual average between 1970 and 1980, while in the sixties - in connection with the socialist reorganization of agriculture - there was a 5 percent annual average growth. The recent decrease can be explained by two factors: first, part of the new generation left agriculture, second, among the older active earners more and more became pensioners. In 1980 the proportion of agricultural cooperative peasants was only 12 percent among the active earners, in 1970 this proportion was 18 percent. The proportion of selfemployed has not changed during the past decade, it is still around 3 percent. 115