Population deconcentration in Hungary during the post-socialist transformation

Abstract

This paper investigates the patterns of population redistribution in contemporary Hungary to better understand the demographic articulations of post-socialist restructuring. We analyze published data for 1980–1997, and machine-readable municipal-level data for 1990–1997 to find that post-socialist restructuring coincides with pronounced population deconcentration after several decades of steady urbanization. While suburbanization accounts for much of this deconcentration, many of the more remote villages in the nation's rural periphery also experienced net in-migration. Our findings call into question the ways in which population deconcentration may be thought of as a social indicator, raise important empirical questions about the attractiveness of remote places as resettlement locations for economically marginal populations, and assert the relevance of demographic analysis for coming to more complete understandings of the effects and implications of post-socialist restructuring.