Ranklists 2018: Hungary’s most interesting facts in numbers

At the end of the year or in the first month of the next year it is usual that countries’ statistical offices make summaries. Many of these surveys are objective ones about the EU or another country’s stats, but eventually, statistics can tell about a country’s development situation and a broad judgement on the country’s issues.

Shortly before New Year’s Eve 2019, index.hu gathered stats about Hungary’s economic and demographical performance in 2018.

ACTUAL INDIVIDUAL CONSUMPTION

AIC deals with the level of quality a country’s population is living, can they afford much from their wages or not? Eurostat revealed statistics on European countries consumption in comparison. Every country is compared by EU average consumption. On this list Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Great-Britain and Denmark are in the top 5. While lastly Bulgaria, before them Hungary, Croatia, Latvia and Romania. However, on the GDP growth list, Hungary takes the 3^rd place, after Latvia and Poland.

MARKET COMPETITIVENESS

Market competitiveness index tells if the country is opened for investments or not, which cannot be seen from GDP only. World Economic Forum (WEF) created a list based on their subjective opinion of successful people in the business. Last year Hungary got 60^th place on the list and 48^th in 2018, which is seemingly more favourable.

FOOD PRODUCTION

Arguably one of the most major topics in 2018 was the issue of sustainability and climate change. According to CNN Intelligence Unit and Barilla’s joint survey, Hungary got the 10^th place in 2018’s Food Sustainability Index. The index had three major aspects: the amount of food loss and waste, secondly sustainable agriculture and thirdly nutritional challenges (of the nation).

You can see more statistics on this link.

CORRUPTION

Transparency International’ survey includes a corruption index in the countries from 0 to 100. Where 100 being the least corrupt and lower is the more and more corruption. Hungary has 45 point, which is the second most corrupt among the EU countries, and Hungary has the same 45 points as Senegal.

BIRTH RATE

Hungary’s birth rate numbers were not promising until 2011, where it got to 1.24 born child per woman, but an increase came and in 2016 and 2017. The number became as high as 1.49 in both years. In the first eleven months of 2018, there were 82,580 births (1.7 percent less than in the same period of 2017) and 118,693 deaths (1.2 percent less than in 2017). Apparently, due to Hungarians moving abroad and high death rates, Hungarian population decrease is still visible on stats. Comparing Hungary to the other 28 countries in terms of birth numbers per woman, Hungary is 18^th.

EXPECTED AGE OF DEATH

Hungarian life expectancy in 2016 is 72.6 for men and 79.7 for women, it means Hungarian men die as the 8^th earliest, and women die as 10^th earliest in Europe. Romania and currently in-war Ukraine has a lower life expectancy. To compare with the neighbours: Slovakia can expect 1 more year, Croatia 2.6 and Austria 7 years more than Hungarian citizens.

Another similar index, Aging Society Index shows 18 countries on how the elderly care in countries. The best countries in this term are Norway, Sweden, USA, and the Netherlands. The rank list’s aspects are: how the elderly feel about their life quality, their opportunities to study or to be employed, how their relationship with the youth, how high is the risk of poverty, social network environment and last but not least how high are their pensions.

REAL ESTATE MARKET

Hungarian apartment prices went exceptionally high, 11% higher than in 2017. Hungary’s skyrocketed real estate market was the 4^th highest in the European Union.

Real estate price changes in 2018’s second quarter compared to the same period of last year (in percentage)

INNOVATION

Hungary has a 0.1 per cent decrease from 2010 in innovation rate by European Committee. This cannot even be considered as an increase or decrease at all, rather a no-development era (by taking these numbers into account only). EU average performed strong growth.

To tell about the good: academic performance has improved in the number of international scientific publications.

Source: index.hu