Kolosi, T.–Róna-Tas, Á.
The last will be the first?

The paper presents a profile of those who gained and lost economically in the political change. Income data was gathered from a group in 1989 and again in 1991. Those factors found most likely to contribute to a good income were: new entrepreneurship, second jobs and capital gains. The most important strategies for avoiding a decrease in income were small scale agricultural production and employment in the private sector. Advancement in the bureaucratic hierarchy was found to have no significant effect on income level. It was also found that the former leaders of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party were, thanks to their high level of education, in an exceptionally favourable position to employ these income-improving strategies. The authors conclude that demands for economic and demands for political transformation have come into conflict in the distribution of elite positions.
 

Szalai, J.
The functions and malfunctions of the social security system in Hungary since the war

The transformation of the system of social security has started parallel to the erosion of the fundamental political, economic and social relations of'socialism' in Hungary. The mostly hidden conversion of its initial funetions (better to say, the multiplication of its intended and unintended roles) has been in close relation with the political compromises of the post-stalinist phase of communist rule. The paper gives a politico-historical account of the changing constellations of the decisive interests that have shaped and re-shaped the everyday'use' of the various schemes within that main field of state-controlled social policy. It points out how social security has helped the gradual marketisation of the economy, how it has led to a delicate equilibrium in the coexistence of the first and the second economies. It also analyses the shadowed aspect of the very same processes: the widening gaps of the standards of living of various social groups and a steady growth of poverty, due in a great deal to the malfunctions of social security in changing and controlling the increasingly unequal distribution of initial incomes.
 

Utasi, Á.
Religious and marital homogamy and cultural reproduction

Using survey data from the years 1986 and 1990, the author investigates the extent to which religion is still, in spite of forty years of anti-religious policies, a determinant of social status in Hungary. She tries to assess the coherence of cultural communities of various denominations by examining marital partner choice. She has found remarkable religious homogamy in Hungary in the second half of the 1980s: marriage between partners of the same religious denomination in this period was significantly more frequent than would have been produced by a random choice of partners. Spatial proximity was also found to favour cultural and religious homogamy, especially in villages which are often remarkably religiously homogeneous.
 

Tyekvicska, Á.
Local revolution: Self-organisation in a Hungarian village in 1956

The paper analyses the process of formation of the revolutionary council in a small village in the North of Hungary. It discusses the flow of information, the dynamic of action and the organizers' personal social interactions. The author concludes that local events were shaped not by directives reaching the village from the centre, but by the aims and capabilities of the actors and by the inflow of external information. The information flow was found to be greatly influenced by the presence of residents employed as railwaymen or as workers in cities. Only a few villages in the region managed to set up a revolutionary council in 1956, and all of these were found to have had a significant number of commuter inhabitants.
 

Jávor, I.–Rozgonyi, T.
Small town experiences in the period of political transition

The authors attempted to explore the various ways in which different social groups within a small town community experienced the change of regime in Hungary. They focussed on three important groups: private entrepreneurs, directors of state firms and cooperatives, and those holding leading political positions. Interviews were also conducted with former high-ranking town council officials.

The paper is a summary of their findings.
 

Pongrácz, T.–S. Molnár, E.
What are "big" families?

The authors examine two questions on the basis of a national representative survey (N=3000) of families which had three or more children in 1981. The first question was: "How many children must a family in Hungary have to be considered a 'big' family?" The second was: "What factors can explain the incidence of big families?"

To answer these questions the mothers were interviewed, and questionnaires about the approx. 13 000 children encompassed by the survey were filled out. According to the findings the social and demographic parametres of families with three children are similar to those of the average Hungarian family. Families with four or more children were found to suffer significant social disadvantages. However, the social status of any individual family is by no means indicated by the number of children. One may find almost deviant families, greatly dependent on social aid, with three or four children, and one may find families in better than average social positions with more than four children. In a corollary finding, the greater number of children in a family, the greater the likelihood that some of these children were unwanted and that the mothers used no form of birth control. However, once again, there were large and prosperous families in which every child was wanted.