Crises, challenges and adaptation in contemporary Hungarian society

NKFIH K147304

2024 - 2027

Participants on behalf on CSS: Karolina Balogh, Adrienne Cszmady, Bernadett Csurgó, Beáta Dávid, Márton Gerő, Ágnes Győri, Gábor Hajdu, Gergely Horzsa, Ákos Huszár, Miklós Illéssy, Eszter Kovács, Lea Kőszeghy, Luca Kristóf, Attila Papp Z., Andrea SZabó, Csilla Zsigmond.

Other participants: Zsombor Varga (Unversity of Debrecen), Ibolya Czibere (University of Debrecen)

After the 2015-2019 economic boom, Hungarian society faced several crises. 48,000 people died in the COVID pandemic, the energy crisis and the internationally high inflation necessitated new individual, family and community adaptation strategies. The aims of the research project are - to analyse the changes in the social structure of the crisis period, to explore the population's adaptation strategies, - to find an answer to what social characteristics the success or failure of adaptation depends on, - what is the essence of innovative social and economic crisis management. The antecedent of this research is the study that started 10 years ago, which connected the analysis of social inequalities with the reinterpretation of social integration. In that research, inspired by the works of Durkheim, Parsons, Granovetter, we adopted the following definition as the concept of integration, which was: "ideal-typical set of actions, attitudes, ideas, etc. (…) that improves the level of cooperation of particular integration agents and /or maintains the possibility of further cooperation, increases agents' sense of togetherness and reduces the chance of communication disorders or conflicts" (Dupcsik and Szabari 2015, 62). We published four larger volumes and 37 papers on the integration of Hungarian society, and conducted three large-scale surveys in 2015, 2018, and 2021. In this research, we are planning a survey of 4,500 people by 2025, in addition to which we will also conduct qualitative interviews. We perceive social integration as a multidimensional phenomenon, which we have successfully connected with the traditional dimensions of social inequality. This method is particularly suitable for researching the population's adaptation to the challenges of crises, because its complexity makes it possible to analyse the underlying reasons for success or failure. In accordance with this approach, in our research we emphasize occupational inequalities and mobility, labour market integration, the issue of poverty and redistribution, the integration functions of the family, political and local integration, the role of social networks in adaptation, as well as migration, housing and health. At the end of the research, we compare the adaptation types and characteristics found in each dimension and attempt to synthesize them theoretically.