Abstract

István Polónyi
Hungarian Human Resources today and tomorrow

The paper first describes the current situation of Hungarian human resources, using various well-known indicators (the Human Capital Index, the Human Development Index, the Legatum Prosperity Index). It notes that the development of human resources in Hungary lags behind developed countries. Following this, it describes some forecasts relating to the various elements  of human resources in Hungary. The study presents forecasts relating to total fertility, aging, education and employment. It notes that in terms of the future development of human resources, Hungary will be one of the weakest performers in the European Union.

Keywords: Human Capital Index, Human Development Index, Legatum Prosperity Index, Human resource development, Fertility, Schooling (The average number of school years per capita), Employment

László Csaba
The Hungarian Paradox – Reflections on Long Term Dilemmas

This essay surveys the accomplishments and challenges of the post-2010 period in the Hungarian economy. It raises an intriguing question. How is that while the majority Government has attained all of its major objectives, this can hardly be said for society and the economy as a whole? In order to obtain an answer, we conduct a SWOT analysis, known from business studies, which summarises the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats related to the economy. We discuss why being stuck in the middle income trap is a realistic fear for the coming decade.

Keywords: government economic policy, SWOT Analysis

György Csepeli
Z generation

In the first part of the paper, the global challenges facing Generation Z, such as global climate change, the nuclear threat, migration and wars along civilisation fault lines will be discussed. Members of Generation Z are the children of digital revolution. Compared with the characteristics of previous generations, this generation has profoundly different networks, knowledge structure and ways of learning. In the second part of the paper the different patterns of the individual segments of the Hungarian Generation Z will be discussed.

Keywords: globalization, digital revolution, social inequality, cast system

Katalin Forray R. – Anna Orsós
The future of the Roma In Hungary

The aim of this paper is to find answers - based on the history of the Roma - to the question of how their future will develop in Hungary.  It examines the two distinctive types of research on the Roma. In the 70’s and 80’s the main research into the Roma was characterised by analysis of their social situation and poverty. From the 90’s, however, a line of research developed which treated the Roma population as an independent cultural ethnicity and political community. In our opinion, this latter trend will determine the coming decades as well. The question is, whether it will happen on a peaceful, negotiated way, or with more impatient methods.

Keywords: Roma, Gypsy, classification, languages, international overview

Miklós Hadas
The Demasculinizing Process. Thoughts about the Long Term Transformation of the European Gender Order

The author of this essay argues that male domination does not have universal validity; its characteristics have fundamentally changed from the Middle Ages onwards. These transformations, during which social relations have gradually lost their masculine, masculinist and patriarchal character, are defined as the Western demasculinizing process. The church, the state, the family, and the school are identified as the main structuring institutions of this process. Based on a comparison of Hungarian and European data on gender relations between 1960 and 2015, the article states that both Hungarian and European trends are moving in the same direction: towards gender equality. By extrapolating these data to the next decades, it is argued that, in spite of certain waves of re-masculinization, the Western gender order will become more balanced and will lose its former structural weight.

Keywords: demasculinization, gender order, Europe, Hungary, gender equality, long term change, future

Idikó Hrubos
The Digital Campus

In the middle of the 2010s the world’s higher education has found itself in a situation that induces and compels it to rapidly change its institutional system. In developed countries the higher education participation rate has reached and exceeded the 50% level, and with this the transition to universal access higher education has commenced, which is overstretching the framework structured to accommodate the phase of mass access to higher education. The focus of the expansion of higher education has shifted to other regions - to emerging and developing countries -, although it has not stopped in developed countries either. In our globalized world these processes are rearranging the balance of power and are changing the usual destinations of student and professor mobility. The effects of the IT revolution manifest themselves in new forms in all subsystems of society, including higher education and research. The ground gained by open, online forms of education weakens and dismantles significant elements of knowledge monopolies. The establishment and introduction of the system of Massive Open Online Courses is spreading rapidly. These endeavours are typical manifestations of the simultaneous effects of higher education expansion and globalization, which - combined with other elements – may also offer a solution to the challenges they themselves generate. Open online systems may contribute to the reduction of social inequalities that are present in higher education, and to the spread of the interdisciplinary approach. At the same time, as a result of their transparency they may even contribute to an increase in the quality and efficiency of education and research.

Keywords: Higher Education Expansion, Globalization, Digitalization, Massive Open Inline Courses

Endre Sík - Blanka Szeitl
Migration in contemporary Hungary

The study outlines the processes of migration from Hungary, based on the latest empirical data (2014-2016). First, the paper analyses the development of a willingness to migrate; then it outlines the recent trends in the migration processes (both labour migration and emigration) and the social characteristics of the migrants. The study finds that the proportion of those planning to migrate has continuously increased since the 1990s, while their social characteristics have not changed: the probability of migration is higher in those social groups which have significant effects on the future of Hungary (both demographically and in regard to the conditions of the labor market). They are the young, the unmarried, men and the skilled/educated groups. The paper assumes that migration will generate more and sharper political and social reactions, and highlights that to understand the migration process, (its causes as well as its effects), it is essential to recognize and identify different perspectives and to separate different types of migration (short- and long-term, one-way and circular, diaspora and emigration, etc.).

Keywords: migration, migration processes

Tamás Kozma
The School of the Future: An Intellectual Movement
in Hungary

Although the Kadar regime still used  official statistics to boast about the economy and society, the regime started to decline at the turn of 1970s/1980s. The ‘School of the Future’ movement that started in the mid-70s served partly as a sign of the vitality of the regime, and partly as a facade of the decline. Two actors took the leading roles in the movement: the National Planning Office and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The article points out that there was also a third party, which has been almost forgotten: educational researchers under the umbrella of the Academy. The latter tried to combine two standpoints: that of the Planning Office (more efficient vocational training) with that of the Academy (a more academically based curriculum for schools). Though the researchers did not succeed in combining the opposite approaches, their efforts to create a compromise between more effective vocational training and more successful general training is still an unsolved question today, and offers many lessons.

Keywords: Hungarian education, history of education, policy analysis, educational values