Changing Villages in Hungary

Changing Villages in Hungary

Typology of rural settlements system in Hungary at the turn of the millennium

In 2005 in Hungary 3,145 administrative units existed, among them 274 possessed the legal status of a town (289 are already towns on January 01, 2007). 35% of the population, more than 3.5 million people live in villages. In most cases in Hungary administrative units equal the actual units of settlements, i.e. the villages. The average population in the villages is 1,230, while 60% of the settlements have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. (According to the latest census result from 2001, the smallest village had only 12 residents, while the population of the largest one exceeded 16,000).

In 1989-1990 in Hungary a "constitutional change of regime" took place, which did not only mean a political change, but structural changes in the society and the economy as well as in operation also started: the socialist, monolithic, one-party social and political system was replaced by a capitalist, pluralist, market-economy, based on private property, and its social and political institutions (multi-party system, parliamentary democracy, civil legal system, etc.).

This change in the regime made a far-reaching effect on the villages of the country:

• while previously the life of the villages was defined by external factors - budgetary support, administrative rank, their position in the settlement development plans, state investments, etc. - after 1990 villages entered "the market of settlements". Their position, their pathway was determined by their geographic location and transport links, natural and environmental conditions, labor-market status, the condition of the local society and their purchasing power among several other factors.

• the transition to market economy, the changes in the economic environment - e.g. the dissolution of the economic integration of the former socialist countries, the increasing competition on the market - was followed by a recession and changes in the spatial economic structure. Most of the mines and industrial units operating in the villages were closed down. Agricultural cooperatives which were of high priority in the socialist era were dissolved or crumbled, and production takes place on private farms again.

• as a result of the "change" or the recession, the number of wage-earners in the industrial sector decreased with 540,000, and the economic activity also fell back (the proportion of the economically active inhabitants in 1970 was 48.3, in 1990 43.6, and in 2001 36.2%.) In the meantime the occupational pattern of the villages also restructured remarkably: the number of agricultural workers decreased to 11%.

These changes in the status of the Hungarian villages triggered the authors (that after 1982, when they classified the types of the villages in the era of "mature socialism") to reveal the processes that formulate contemporary villages and to establish a new typology. Since today numerous contradicting factors define the status of the villages and their types in the structure of the settlements, we based our research on a factor- and cluster-analysis. The 27 variables we used reflect the following components of the status and the condition of the villages:

• Natural resources, agricultural conditions
• The position of villages in settlement systems
• Economic role of villages
• Transport position of village
• Basic public services of the villages with institutions like elementary school, GP surgery, pharmacy, post office, parsonage, etc.
• Demographic and social position of villages and income-vealth relations
• Pace and direction of settlement development

The basis of the typology was an eight-factor version which we obtained from the principal component analysis.

The main results of the factor-analysis is that while in the socialist era in the differentiation of the villages the size of the settlement and the quality of the basic public services played the main role, followed by the occupational pattern of the inhabitants and the degree of commuting (i.e. the labor market situation), today the main determinant of this is labor market conditions and its factors.

The structure of the factors based on our calculations is as follows:

name of the factor	eigenvalue-level
1.Labor market conditions - "development"	4.46
2. Size of the settlement - quality of basic public services	3.06
3. Demographic characteristics	3.00
4. Direction and dynamics of the changes in the population	2.02
5. Occupational structure, commuting	1.98
6.Proportion of tourism	1.70
7. Rate of the population in the outskirt zone	1.68
8. Agricultural conditions	1.03

So, for instance, the first factor was based on the following variables: the ratio of economically active inhabitants, the number of cars and the number of enterprises per 1,000 persons, the proportion of people possessing high school diploma in the population over 18, the rate of the unemployed, flats with 4 or more rooms, the number of businesses for 1,000 inhabitants and the distance of towns.
The values of the indicators concentrated in the first factor, - the so-called factorscore values - show remarkable spatial differences (figure 28), marking the dynamically developing regions of the country (North-West Hungary, the surroundings of Budapest).

When defining the second factor, primarily the number of population, the range of institutions of basic public services, the size of the nearby settlements and the number of commuters were considered. (This last one shows a close reciprocity with the size of the settlements: the diverse economy of larger towns attracts a larger number of in-commuters.) In our research of 1982 the indicators determining this factor used to belong to the "dominant" factors. So compared to the 1970s and '80s, the role that the size of the settlement and basic public services played has decreased.

For determining the typology of the settlements we used a cluster analysis and the MacQeen-algorithm; where the input data were the factorscore values. From the numerous possible variations of the cluster analysis we decided on a set of 25 clusters. By merging the clusters we created 7 main- and 14 sub-types. These are the following (figure 36):

I. Settlements in the inner zone of the agglomeration

             I. 1. developed settlements with a large number of inhabitants and of high prestige (34 settlements)

             I. 2. settlements with medium size and small population (68 settlements)

II.Growing settlements in the outer zone of the agglomeration

              (growing population, high ratio of out-commuters an industrial workers) (218 settlements)

III. Villages with small and moderately decreasing population (482 settlements)

III.1. villages with residential role, a favorable labor market position and stagnating population (273)

III. 2. medium-size villages with an average labor market position and of mixed roles (209)

IV. Villages with touristic role, spa resorts and thermal baths (38 settlements)

V. típus: Medium-size settlements with unfavorable labor market conditions, sometimes with a remarkable agricultural role or outskirt population (449 settlements)

V.1. medium-size settlements with an unfavorable labor market conditions and stagnating population (379)

V.2. scattered settlements with an agricultural role (70)

VI. Small villages with good labor market conditions and stable population serving as residential and with a touristic role (675 settlements)

VI.1. Small villages with stable population and high ratio of out-commuters (631 settlements)

VI.2.Small villages with unfavourable demographic indicators but with a remarkable touristic role (44 settlements)

VII. Small villages with bad labor market conditions, decreasing population, in an     unfavorable position with a distorted demographic social structure (911 settlements)

VII.1. small villages without basic public services, with decreasing population and commuting inhabitants (432)

VII. 2. small villages with mixed roles, with decreasing population and without basic public services (105)

VII. 3. small villages with rather unfavorable labor market conditions but with an increasing population and a demographic structure with an increasing youth rate (191)

VII. 4. small settlements with an agricultural role, unfavorable labor market conditions and radically decreasing population (183)

Evaluating the results of the typology, we can state that:

• The results and effects of the rapid and strong changes after 1990 in the (social and economic) lives of the villages - de-industrialization, dissolution of the majority of the agricultural cooperatives, fundamental changes in the structure of the labor market, re-establishing of the self-government system, technical development, etc. - still are not harmonized yet, thus several simultaneous and contradicting processes can be observed: for example in some villages demographic and social processes with reversed values are present. In some cases this "harmonization" makes the different types hard to interpret.

• At the same time, the total stock of villages has undergone a certain homogenization. For example the ratio of out-commuters compared to the number of wage-earners in every village and village type is rather high, it amounts to or exceeds 60-70%. So nowadays this formerly strong differentiating factor plays a modest role in the typology, the majority of our villages serve as an area for living (62% of the economically active population is commuting). The disappearance of mining villages and industrial settlements (partly because they were declared towns, partly because the mines and factories were closed down) also resulted in the relative homogeneity of the villages. The decrease in agricultural production (considering the number and rate of wage-earners working in the agricultural sector) has suppressed agriculture as a primary activity among the determining factors. (Today the old equation of "village = settlement with an agricultural activity" is no longer valid.)

• While on the basis of the hard data, a certain unification can be observed inside the stock of villages, the status of the local society, their sociological features, the differences deriving from the different financial statuses - e.g. the environment formed by the ways of recreation, the amount spent on "culture", tastes, demands, financial background; the general look of the village, the lifestyle of the inhabitants, their scale of values, their dressing habits, etc. - along with the traditions the inhabitants preserve, the social layers of the villages and several, non-factual factors generate a rather diverse "formula". The diversity of the soft data - from the "elite" residential quarters in the suburbs, to the unemployed people of the villages stricken by demographic erosion, scraping along on social benefits or casual work - is highly remarkable. However, obviously, these differences appear only indirectly in our database.
  

• Thus, no matter how big a database, what kind of mathematical-statistical apparatus we worked with, only the main coordinates of the villages and their phenomena transformed and condensed into data could be observed when setting up the typology. Still, the result of the innumerable possible combination of the innumerable possible characteristics is that each and every village is unique and irreproductable. This must be taken into consideration at the evaluation of our findings.

• At the same time in the prevalence of certain types of villages some regularity can be detected. The frequency distribution of the prevalence of certain types of villages (as it can be seen in Table 54) and the different "mix" of the different types create regions with a character of their own. On Figure 44 we marked the parts and regions of the country in which certain homogeneity can be observed in the frequency distribution and the rate of "trade" in the different types of villages.