In 2010, Hungary began offering wide family support to young couples who promised to have children. The help included interest-free loans, tax breaks, mortgage subsidies, and other payments. At one point, the policy seemed to work: the fertility rate rose from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.59 in 2020. But by 2025 it had fallen to 1.31, which led some experts to call the policy a failure when judged by its own aims.
Supporters still argue that the program helped some families and may have slowed a bigger drop. Critics say the benefits did not reach everyone in the same way. Some parents said health care, child care, and schools mattered more than cash help. Others said the main issue was not money, but whether daily life made it easy to raise children. Hungary is not alone in trying this approach, and South Korea has also spent large sums on family support while its birth rate kept falling.