1990 POPULATION CENSUS Detailed data based on a 2 per cent representative sample (1992)

I. REVIEW OF THE DATA - A/ Main characteristics of the population

categories were distinguished: those who wanted to get a job for the first time and the unemployed seeking employment. In the case of both categories the uniform condition of assignment was that the person questioned did not pursue any gainful activity but intended to find employment or to estabilish somé form of undertaking and, for this, he had taken the appropriate measures, e.g. through an employment office, personal acquaintance, newspaper advertisement. The lack and the fact, respectively, of an earlier gainful activity constituted the difference between the two groups. By itself, the unemployment — of 110 000 persons — revealed by the 1990 population census appeared as a factor reducing the employment level. Besides the old-age retirement related with the long-term demographic processes mentioned already, the growth in the number of persons of working age retiring alsó contributed to the decline in the number of economically active persons. Namely, the number of males aged under 60 years and of females aged under 55 years receiving pensions or rents was 354 000 persons at the beginning of 1990, nearly by 100 000 more than ten years before. This difference can be ascribed to three main factors: - disability pensions were established in a sphere broadening even more than in the early 1980s; - persons in jobs entitling them to retire before reaching pensionable age (e.g. miners, metalworkers, members of the armed forces) made use of this possibility to a greater extent than earlier; - in 1987-1988, but mainly in 1989, there was a possibility in other fields, too, to retire before reaching pensionable age, under specified conditions. This last factor practically meant alsó a specific form of managing unemployment. Namely, this possibility could be used by those employed with a longer time of service who were near pensionable age and whose place of work ceased due to liquidation, reorganization, mass reduction, but who, because of their age couldn't already find an other job. (The danger of unemployment could have alsó been — to a certain extent — behind the above two motives of permitting retirement under pensionable age, though it cannot be proved directly.) Another cause of the decrease in the number of persons who could be surveyed as economically active was that from 1988 on measures having limited earlier travels abroad were relaxed (introduction of the world passport, initiative concerning the annulment of the obligatory visa system, permitting a longer stay abroad). Namely, by this, more Hungárián citizens could find individually a way to get a job abroad. (These persons, as having a temporary residence abroad, were omitted frotn the resident population.) At former censuses the principle of "full employment" and the related legal rules (e.g. the criminal persecution of "penal idleness") produced a situation in which alsó persons who actually didn't work indicated somé fictive occupation. At the 1990 census this consideration didn't play a role anymore and because of the well-known social tensions the willingness of declaration by the population n of occasional and seasonal activities decreased. These subjective elements, however, could not change the basic tendencies. Thus the great fali — by more than 4 percentage points — in the proportion of active earners having occurred in the 1980-1990 period reflects reál processes. On January 1, 1990, of the resident population of the country 4 467 000 persons (43 per cent) were economically active; their number was by 600 000, by 12 per cent lower than ten years before. During this period the number of inactive earners continued to grow. In 1980 one fifth, in 1990 already one quarter of the population belonged to this category. (In the last twenty-year period the number of inactive earners increased nearly twofold,from 1 395 000 to 2 633 000 persons). At the beginning of 1990, the unemployed still represented only 1 per cent of the population. As to the totál number of dependents, in the last decade, the decreasing tendency of the 1970's continued. Within that, however, the number and proportion of pupils and students have increased since 19B0 and, in 1990, were even higher than in 1970. 15