How to reduce permanent poverty in Hungary

The adaptation of welfare systems to external challenges had strarted long before the global economic crisis: one approach within the new paradigm is the idea of active social policy, promoted by the OECD, which emphasizes prevention and the strengthening of the adaptive skills of the labour force. The success of conditional cash transfers (CCT) applied in the developing countries encouraged analysts and politicy makers to examine if these tools can be included into the active social policy toolkit. The essence of CCT is to encourage households to use some kind of public service (eg. school, healthcare, employment help), which improves the present or future welfare of their family (often via long term effects on their children).

This project aimed to extend the earlier study of TÁRKI and examine if CCTs can be applied to the problem of long term unemployment and extreme poverty in Hungary. The final final report of the study is downloadable from the bottom section of this page.

The results of the project were also presented at a conference on 9 April 2012 by  Zsombor Cseres-Gergely, György István Tóth, and Balázs Váradi (available in Hungarian).