ABSTRACT
If we try to incorporate the welfare system of socialist Hungary in the comparative typologies and assume that there was not, and is not, so to speak, a black hole in the middle of Europe, a complicated story emerges. If a market-based economy and political democracy are substantive elements in any form of welfare state, welfare provision existed in the socialist countries, but the welfare state as such did not. Social security – or, more in line with the phraseology of that period, the ‘well-being of the people’ – was initially served by the concept and practice of full employment. Social policy was not separated from the other subsystems of the society. Social insurance systems, albeit within certain limits, existed in Hungary before the political changes of 1989, i.e. before the basic framework of social services (such as child protection institutions and institutions for senior and disabled citizens) and family support were developed. Social assistance had a limited ‘residual’ role in maintaining incomes and was mainly discretionary. By the 1970s more or less the whole population was entitled to health services and an old age pension. Social provisions were made dependent on employment.
