In favor of “traditional” families The Fidesz party and its international allies have long insisted on the importance of the family and defined childbirth as the highest fulfillment and sacred duty of women. Last September the fourth Demographic Summit in Budapest was held , an international meeting of ultra-conservatives, which had as its axis the theme of “the family as the key to sustainability”. Speakers included many Fidesz politicians as well as international guests including former US Vice President Mike Pence, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Andrej Babiš, then Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.

Novak and Orbán spoke at the summit to reinforce the importance of the “traditional” family, in which C Level Contact List bear the primary responsibility for raising children, doing housework and keeping their families happy and healthy, while men they are the breadwinner of the family. Orbán declared that [ government’s goal is to make having children economically favorable, so that women can stay at home and leave their paid jobs. Some of Fidesz’s controversial policies reflect these objectives. For example, the Family Housing Aid Program offers loans for the purchase (or renovation) of a house to families who have or plan to have children. The more children the family has, the more favorable the loan will be.

However, as many critics have pointed out, most government schemes to help families from different social backgrounds only benefit middle-class families with stable jobs and the ability to cope with complicated application processes. The tax system benefits families in a similar way: the richest tend to benefit most, which consolidates structural social inequality, leaving the lowest social classes without substantial aid. An unequal system that subordinates women The problem is not just the wrong and unequal financial support for Hungarian families, but how, according to Novák and the Fidesz government, these families should be. The “traditional” family structure that they promote so much is where most of the gender inequalities in Hungarian society originate, and also where these inequalities are reproduced and reinforced.