Sitting on a park bench on the leafy university campus in Debrecen, a city in eastern Hungary, Barbara Elek nervously checks her email. She and her husband, Levi, are waiting to find out if Barbara is pregnant after her third in vitro fertility treatment ten days ago.

“If it didn't work, obviously I'll be devastated,” Barbara tells BBC Global Women.

Her concern is not only based on the sadness of not being able to have a baby. She and Levi could also face paying a large debt if she fails to conceive.

Like many other young Hungarian couples, Barbara, who is a social worker, and Levi, a chef, were entitled to tens of thousands of dollars in interest-free loans and subsidies when they promised to have two children.

But when they realized that they could not conceive naturally, the situation became complicated. If they cannot prove that they are expecting a child in November, they will have to repay those loans with penalties, which would consume almost half of their income.

Over the past 16 years, under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary implemented some of the most ambitious and generous pronatalist (designed to increase the birth rate) policies in the world.

The measures included loans with conditions that improved depending on the number of children the couple declared they had. After the birth of three children, the loans were paid off.

Hungary has allocated between 4% and 5% of its GDP to these measures - almost US$16 billion - an amount similar to what NATO recommends its member countries spend on defense. All of this has been accompanied by a fierce marketing campaign promoting the idea of ​​a “family-friendly Hungary.”

Máté and Ági Gorondy are parents of five children under 10 years old. They took advantage of generous maternity benefits and financial aid to renovate their house and buy a bigger car.

Máté, an independent business developer, benefits from tax breaks that increase with each child. And Ági, being a mother of more than two children, will not pay any income tax if she returns to work.

“We feel that these benefits influenced our decision to have children, as they generated a favorable attitude towards families,” says Máté.

The father adds that in his village, an affluent suburb on the outskirts of Budapest, there has been a notable increase in families with four and five children.

Birth rate falls

For a time, Hungary's birth rate increased: from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.61 in 2020. This increase was considered a great success by some, especially some American conservatives who advocate for more proactive, pro-family governments.

However, in the last three years, the birth rate has dropped to 1.31, a figure not much higher than the program's initial figure.

“It seems that these policies were effective for a time, as is the case with most pronatalist measures,” says Eva Fodor, co-director of the Democracy Institute at Central European University.

She believes financial incentives pushed some people to have children they would have had anyway simply earlier than planned. “That's why the birth rate went up for a while, a year or two, and then it started going down again.”

According to Timothy P. Carney, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of several books on the declining birth rate, Orbán's greatest success was placing the family at the center of political discourse.

But Carney adds that "part of the problem is that we overestimate the effectiveness of financial incentives. Orban had modest success, but he also demonstrated the costs and risks of family policies."

Hungary is not the only country that has tried to increase its birth rate through financial and social policies.

South Korea's birth rate was 1.19 in 2008, one of the lowest in the world. Since then, the country has invested around US$290 billion in trying to help its population have more children. Parents receive a “birth bonus” of between US$27,000 and US$40,000 when a child is born, plus generous monthly benefits for each child. They also receive vouchers to help with private childcare.

However, South Korea's total birth rate declined during that time, standing at 0.8 in 2025.

Some argue that Hungary's birth rate rise and fall had little to do with its policies, and simply reflected broader trends in Europe. The Czech Republic, for example, did not introduce such expansive pronatalist measures, but experienced a similar rise and fall.

bad calculations

Barbara and Levi met online nine years ago, when they were in their early 20s, and married a year later. They knew they wanted to have two children and applied for the 10 million forint ($33,000) prospective parents loan in 2020. When they had difficulty conceiving naturally, they were referred to a government-subsidized in vitro fertilization clinic located an hour and a half drive from where they live.

To obtain a waiver of penalties if she does not become pregnant, Barbara needs to demonstrate that she has made every effort to conceive. She must have undergone four cycles of treatment, but has only gone through the process three times so far. So the night before her appointment she prepared all the documentation she had gathered: several folders of medical and financial documents, all evidence of her efforts to have a baby.

Antónia Miskolczi, otra joven que solicitó algunos de los préstamos ofrecidos, considera que las políticas de apoyo a la familia fueron una distribución de dinero mal calculada. In her personal case, she adds, the loans did not encourage her to have more children.

Antónia adds that an important condition for her was to only accept the loans if they did not influence the number of children she would have.

This 29-year-old mother from Budapest believes that healthcare was in a deplorable state under Orbán's government and would have preferred if public funds had been used to improve public services.

She describes seeing videos on social media from expectant mothers about “what I put in my hospital bag” and was horrified to see that they were asked to bring their own toilet paper and disinfectant.

“I don't think you need big promises,” he says, “just fix the basics, and the willingness to have children will increase.”

Antónia finally chose to give birth in a private hospital.

After a distressing morning at the clinic, Barbara and Levi receive devastating news: the embryo transfer was unsuccessful. Not only does this mean they won't have children, but the monthly payments to repay their debt could quadruple.

They are not the only ones in this situation: the National Bank of Hungary estimates that there are 25,000 couples - one in five who applied for loans between 2019 and 2021 - who did not have children and will have to pay penalty interest this year.

The new Hungarian government, which took power in April, recently announced that it will extend the deadlines for couples to have children. He also declared that he will look for solutions for those who did not have the promised children.

A difficult decision for the government will be whether or not to continue the incentives. These policies have proven popular. Removing them could “cause a huge negative reaction from the public,” according to Antónia, who claims that “people have already based their plans on them.”

Hungary's family-friendly policies, a key pillar of Orbán's government, face an uncertain future.