Inclusive and quality schools today imply fewer unemployed tomorrow

18/04/2016

The economic dependency ratio may soon reach an unsustainable level in Hungary. 

Today in Hungary the taxes payed by 3.9 million employees cover the state expenditure on 6 million children, unemployed, public workers and pensioners. In other words, on average, two workers provide for three persons dependent on public welfare. Unless we make significant investments to improve the quality and accessibility of public education, the share of unskilled youth will continue to rise and may further increase the dependency ratio, which is clearly unsustainable.

This was the main message of the campaign of the Foundation for Democratic Youth, which BI supported by summarising the existing evidence in a factsheet (in Hungarian). The issue of providing high quality education to disadvantaged children is discussed in more detail in our recent policy brief on early tracking in the Visegrad countries.