ABSTRACT
Hungary has a population of 10,106,017. The number of inhabitants reached its peak at 10.7 million in 1980 and has been diminishing steadily since then. The population decrease in Hungary over the past two decades was accompanied by an ageing of the population. The open Hungarian economy was deeply shaken by the collapse of the Comecon which until then had been considered its main export market. Industrial production fell dramatically to 74% of the 1989 level in 1991, 67% in 1992 and 70% in 1993. By the mid-nineties, the structure of the Hungarian economy had become largely similar to the sectoral distribution of employment characteristic of most EU Member States. Hungary is a border country to the EU. In the last ten years, a large number of migrants entered the country – either seeking better-paid jobs than available in their home-countries or attempting to get over the 'Schengen Wall', an endeavor that very often fails.
