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1. Political commitment to evidence-based youth policy

2. Cooperation between policy-making and research

3. National statistics and available data sources

4. Budgetary allocations supporting research in the youth field

Political commitment to evidence-based youth policy

The main channel of research informing youth policy is large-scale youth research, which has been conducted every four years since 2000. In each cycle, youth research is conducted on 15-29-year-olds, using a representative sample of 8 000 people. In 2024, the age range has been extended, and the sample involves young people between the ages of 15 and 34, and the sample size was decreased to 5 000 individuals. Between 2009 and 2024, the implementation of the research was regulated by the National Youth Strategy. In the framework of the EU project of the National Youth Council (EU Youth Dialogue) significant research results are incorporated into the decision making processes.

Cooperation between policy-making and research

Institutionalised mechanisms and actors

As noted, there are no institutionalised mechanisms or channelling youth research to policymaking, but the role of large-scale youth research is central here.

Research related to youth policy was carried out at the National Institute for Family, Youth and Population Policy. Due to the restructuring of background institutions in 2016, these professional functions were assigned to the Ministry of Human Capacities, which in the end of 2017 founded the Maria Kopp Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS). From 2022, the responsible body for the professional management of the KINCS is the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (Kulturális és Innovációs Minisztérium).

Informal/ ad-hoc cooperation

Apart from the youth researches that occur in every four years, there is no regular research, only ad hoc cooperation and secondary analyses. The primary strategic documents contain an overview with data on which the priorities are based. However, there is no reference to data in the latest action plan of the National Youth Strategy for 2016-2017.

Evidence-based evaluation of youth policies

As EU funds finance several youth programmes with a formal obligation to carry out relevant monitoring activities, many empirical data sources can be reached. In addition, market researchers also deal with youth-related issues from time to time. Significant examples are studies on Internet use and its dangers and the analysis of migration intention and potential. Still the results of these surveys have not been officially mentioned in government documents.

Monitoring the specific projects funded by the government is done regularly through the Electronic Tender Administration and Cooperation System (EPER). Evaluation and reporting on these tenders is done using data provided through the system. The review of smaller projects can vary. The review of the Petőfi Sándor programme mentioned earlier is a publication that consists of reports of the participants.

National statistics and available data sources

The existence of national youth statistics

The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) collects statistics on youth. Besides the basic demographic data, detailed age-specific information is available for education, income, culture and info-communication. The HCSO regularly publishes information about youth employment as part of the general labour market overview, and the most recent publication is in the second quarter of 2023.

According to the latest HCSO data from 2024, the employment rate of young people aged 15-24 was about 27.8% in the third quarter of 2024 and it was not changed significantly in recent years. In the last quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate of 15-24-year-olds was 17.4%, which is higher than in the last quarters, but they are usually unemployed only for a short time and seek for a job in 3 months.

Specific youth indicators

In addition to the above, the HCSO regularly collects data on aspects of education (mainly the numbers of students in the different levels of education, but budgetary data is also published) and farming (young farmers are defined as those under the age of 40). One specific indicator regarding books published in youth and children's literature exists.

National youth report

The HCSO publishes no general youth reports. Still, specific reports and publications often analyse the topics of family and population, and labour market, where the situation of young people is described. Besides that, the analyses connected to the regular large sample youth research also present statistical data.

Large-sample youth research

The most recent published study of the large sample youth research is Hungarian Youth 2020 (Magyar Fiatalok 2020), representative of 15-29-year-olds living in Hungary and ethnic Hungarian youth of the neighbouring countries, was conducted in 2020. A flash report and a secondary analysis were published based on the results. The first reports on the 2024 wave will be published in 2025.

Other data and analyses

As mentioned, ad hoc research focusing on specific policy fields or topics under the ministry is frequent. A detailed analysis of the situation of young people in the labour market was published in 2020.

Currently the most crucial actor in carrying out youth research is the Youth Research Institute of the Mathias Corvinus College. They made a secondary analysis of the 2020 large sample youth research and carried out two survey researches of young people between the ages of 15 and 39 in 2022-23. Its results were published in 2023. Since then, the Institute has published several results of smaller-scale research projects.

Budgetary allocations supporting research in the youth field

There is no separate, allocated budget line for youth research. The large-scale research before 2020 was financed through the budget (using EU funds) allocated to the New Generation Centre.