HAROLD DELANEY AND ANDRÁS VARGHA

Hungary has experienced great changes in the years since the Iron Curtain on the HungarianAustrian border was dismantled in May of 1989, with profound implications for both the freedom and subjective well-being of the Hungarian people.  

One of the clearest indications of a lack of well-being in a nation is a high suicide rate. Back in the mid-1980s, Hungary was renowned for having the highest suicide rate in the world.1 At 45 per 100,000 population between 1983 and 1987, it was almost four times the rate in the U.S.2 Since 1987 Hungary’s suicide rate has shown a remarkable decline, however. In 1995 it was 33 cases per 100,000 population, 21 in 2005, and had fallen to 19 by 2015. This was still the third highest suicide rate in the European Union.3 Yet the decrease in suicides in Hungary since 1985 was over three times greater than in any other former Eastern Bloc state.4

During the same period, by contrast, the U.S. suicide rate initially declined from 13 per 100,000 in 1985 to 10 in 2000. Yet after that it rose steadily to reach 13 again in 2015.5 The U.S. suicide rate has since continued to rise while Hungary’s has continued to fall, so that in 2016 the age-adjusted suicide rate in Hungary was lower than that in the U.S. for the first time, and by 2019 the U.S. rate was over 14 while Hungary’s rate was below 12.6 Such a phenomenon raises questions about how the great  changes Hungary has witnessed since the 1980s—including in the sphere of faith—may have improved the well-being of the Hungarian people. 

Suicide is clearly a complex phenomenon influenced by numerous factors, including characteristics of both the individual and the culture in which he or she lives. A recent study in Hungary indicates that the most important risk factor for suicide is being unemployed or experiencing a long-term illness, while one of the most protective factors is practicing a religion.7 Genetic factors plausibly also may have contributed to the historically high suicide rate among Hungarians. Yet the forces resulting in the striking decline in suicide rates in Hungary in recent decades must be found elsewhere than in stable factors such as genetics.

Declining suicide rates

Unemployment has been shown to be a relevant factor in suicide in individual cases. However, trends in employment do not explain the consistent overall decline in suicide rates in Hungary. From less than two percent in the 1980s, unemployment increased sixfold to over 10 percent in the 1990s.8 It dropped below seven percent in the early 2000s, but had risen back to over 10 percent by 2010, while suicide rates continued to fall. Since 2013 unemployment has fallen precipitously, sinking to four percent in 2018. Thus, while unemployment has fluctuated greatly since the 1980s, suicide has continued to steadily decline year after year.9 

Given income has risen consistently and substantially in Hungary over the past three decades, this appears to be a more promising predictor of the country’s suicide rates than unemployment. The average income (GDP per capita) in Hungary was $18,968 in 2021, more than five times the average of $3,312 in 1990. Income rose at a moderate rate in the 1990s, at an average annual increase of five percent over the decade. It then grew rapidly in the 2000s—at an average annual rate of 11 percent over the decade—before reverting to slower, but continued growth of 3.5 percent a year between 2010 and 2021.10 

This is not the whole story, however, as a comparison of the average level of happiness in the various counties of Hungary indicates. The average income in Budapest is 36 percent higher than the European Union mean, yet the happiness level of the Hungarian capital is below the national average. By contrast, the average income in most Hungarian counties is half or even less than the E.U. mean, but the happiness level in several of those counties is above average. 

Here, we turn to important insights garnered by recent international scholarship over the past two decades into the role played by fundamental human freedoms—including freedom of religion or belief—as factors contributing to a nation’s sense of well-being rather than despair. Surveys of representative national samples in countries representing 90 percent of the world’s population have shown that although average wellbeing in a country rises together with per capita income, this is strongly related to well-being only for average annual incomes of up to approximately $10,000.11 Having sufficient money to buy food and shelter is critical for a sense of well-being, but once such basic needs are met, other factors are far more important in determining happiness. 

One factor with particular relevance to ex-Communist Hungary is the degree of individual human freedom. A 2005 study using nationally representative samples gathered from over 70 countries, with a total sample size of more than a quarter of a million people, revealed that perceived personal freedom in a country correlates very highly (.78 out of 1) with average life satisfaction.12 A more recent study using samples from 146 countries confirms that the freedom to make one’s own life choices was a highly statistically significant predictor of the average levels of both life satisfaction and positive emotions reported by people in a country.13

Other non-monetary factors 

Other non-monetary factors driving the sense of well-being in a country become apparent if one compares countries doing better than would be expected, given their average income, with those doing worse than expected. In surveys conducted between 1995 and 2007 in 88 countries encompassing almost 90 percent of the world’s population, all 14 Latin American countries surveyed reported higher levels of well-being than would be expected based upon their average income. By contrast, all 22 former Communist countries surveyed—including Hungary—reported lower levels of wellbeing, despite incomes as high or even higher than those in Latin America. One plausible reason is that virtually all the Latin American societies are strongly religious, whereas this is not generally the case in ex-Communist nations. Threequarters of Latin Americans endorsed statements such as “God is very important in my life,” while only a quarter of those in ex-Communist countries did so. The strength of a country’s democracy and religiosity thus appear to be more important predictors of its citizens’ well-being than the average level of personal income.14 

Another recent finding is that “societies that experienced Communist rule for a relatively long time show lower levels [of subjective well-being] than those that experienced it only since World War II.”15 Hungary had a higher average subjective wellbeing than all of the 10 countries of the former Soviet Union included in the 1995-98 Wave 3 of the World Values Survey. The United Nations’ World Happiness Reports, published annually from 2012 through 2022, further reveal that Hungary ranked fourth out of all countries surveyed in the increase in average life satisfaction between 2008-12 and 2019-21.16 Hungary thus moved over the last 10 years from clearly below average in happiness in 2012 (110th of 156 countries surveyed) to clearly above average (51st out of 146 countries surveyed) in the most recent 2022 report.17

Religious factor?

Questions remain, however. Two comparable former Communist bloc countries—Poland and Romania—rank somewhat higher in life satisfaction than Hungary (Poland— 48th, Romania—28th), despite having somewhat lower per capita incomes (Poland—$17,815, Romania—$14,792).18 Further research is required to determine whether the explanation partly lies in the differing levels of religiosity in those countries. Hungary, where 56 percent identify as Catholic, has a much larger segment of population who are religiously unaffiliated (21 percent) than the one percent religiously unaffiliated in Romania—where 86 percent identify as Orthodox—or the seven percent religiously unaffiliated in Poland, where 87 percent identify as Catholic. Furthermore, only 59 percent of Hungarians say they believe in God, in contrast to 95 percent of Romanians and 86 percent of Poles.19 

Yet this is while Hungary has made strong efforts to promote religious life in recent decades. In 1991, following the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was the first country in EastCentral Europe to pass a law requiring the restitution of, or financial compensation for, properties confiscated from religious organizations during Communist rule.20 By 2007 major religious communities in Hungary had submitted over 8,000 property restitution claims, of which roughly 20 percent resulted in property restitution and another 20 percent in financial compensation. In addition to returned property, the Hungarian Reformed Church received the equivalent of $5.2 million in compensation, amounting to over a quarter of the government’s payouts to religious organizations.21 Hungary’s Constitutional Court further ruled that transferring public funds to religious communities was warranted in the light of earlier religious repression. One outcome of this ruling was that 17 percent of secondary schools and six percent of universities had become church-run institutions by 2008.22 

Among the latter is the Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church, which has developed a strong graduate program in psychology since the fall of the Communist regime. Psychology scholars from Károli Gáspár and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), both in Budapest, have monitored levels of happiness across Hungary’s different regions in recent years. A further program focusing on the psychological well-being of Hungarians is the International Well-Being Education Network, launched in Hungary in 2014. To date this has involved more than 7,000 teachers giving lessons on happiness to more than 100,000 pupils in elementary and secondary schools across the country.23

 A previous educational program launched in Hungary in 1994 also attempted to impact the well-being of students. Youth at the Threshold of Life (YTL) was a curriculum written by Gábor Grész and David Robinson—staff with Timóteus Társaság (Campus Crusade for Christ Hungary)—and approved by the Ministry of Education, with the backing of the National Institute of Health Promotion, for use in Hungarian public schools. The program was supported by Dr. Dénes Bánhegyi, then the National AIDS Coordinator, with the goals of decreasing sexual promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, drug use, and of preparing students for adulthood and marriage. By 2001, 4,000 educators representing 500 schools were trained in using YTL, and while 8 out of 10 were atheists, more than 70 percent taught the entire YTL curriculum—which included several Christian elements, such as showing the Jesus film. By 2010, 411,260 Hungarian students in 899 cities and villages had been part of a YTL classroom.24 The original 43-part curriculum has been expanded into a three-volume teachers’ manual, building on the philosophy of education and values in C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, with the different volumes addressing “Authentic Self-Esteem,” “Intimate Relationships,” and “Motivating Goals.” The curriculum has now been used in 62 countries around the world.25 

Rise in marriage rate

Perhaps one of the more important “enduring fruits” (John 15:16) of the YTL program is that, after hundreds of thousands of students over the past 25 years have been taught the benefits of a committed marital relationship, Hungary has now achieved the highest rate of marriage in Europe, with its rate in 2020 of 6.88 marriages per 1,000 people being more than double the EU average of 3.2. Although the Hungarian government’s expanded family benefits policy likely contributed to the 90 percent increase in marriage rates in the last 10 years, it is also possible YTL’s long-term efforts promoting marriage may have helped create an environment in which such a policy could be embraced. 26 

While impacting just a few students a year, in 2012 the current authors began to offer a course called “Sigmund Freud  Debates C. S. Lewis” to undergraduate students in psychology through Károli Gáspár University. This online course utilizes a book by former Harvard professor and Christian psychiatrist Armand Nicholi, entitled The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. Here, Freud’s arguments for atheism are contrasted with Lewis’ arguments for belief in God. We have found that, while belonging to a largely secular milieu, inquiring Hungarian undergraduates welcome the opportunity to consider issues of faith in an academic setting. They are typically impressed by how C. S. Lewis’ conversion from atheism to the Christian worldview as a young Oxford professor transformed his life for the better.

Cloud on the horizon

The current review has stressed the tremendous improvement in the psychological and economic well-being of Hungarians over the past 30 years. Looking to the future, however, a cloud on the horizon concerns personal freedom, which we have noted as one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing in a country. After receiving the highest rating of “Free” every year from 1990 through 2017,27 the U.S.-based human rights organization Freedom House has rated Hungary’s status as “Partly Free” each year from 2018 through 2021, based on its detailed analysis of political rights and civil liberties in Hungary.28 

Citizens’ own perceptions of their freedom are evaluated in the World Happiness Reports, based upon responses to a single question about freedom: “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?” Here, the mean ranking of Hungarian citizens’ responses was lower than 29 of the 36 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in the most recent report.29 The World Happiness Report authors note that, over the last 15 years, the sense of freedom to make key life decisions had the lowest initial levels—but the fastest growth—in Central and Eastern Europe compared to other regions of the world. Hungarians’ average ratings of their freedom increased over this period, but at a slower rate—and since 2010 the country has on average ranked 115th out of the roughly 145 countries surveyed.30 

We hope that freedom in Hungary will grow in the coming years so that—emerging with other nations from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic—the country can continue to make strides not only in economic prosperity, but also in the spiritual and psychological well-being of its people. 

Notes:

1. Dalma Böszörményi and Harold Delaney, “A hurting Hungary,” East-West Church and Ministry Report, vol. 1 (1993), no. 2, 6-7; Zoltán Rihmer et al, “Decreasing suicide in Hungary,” British Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 177 (2000), no.1, 84. 
2. Zoltán Rihmer et al, “ Suicide in Hungary: Epidemiological and clinical perspectives,” Annals of General Psychiatry, vol. 12 (2013), article no. 21.
3. “Just over 56,000 persons in the EU committed suicide,” Eurostat, 16 July 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20180716-1
4.  Dennis Bowen, “Suicide in former Eastern Bloc states and the church’s response,” East-West Church and Ministry Report, vol. 20 (2012), no. 1, 4-7. 
5. “QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Rate for Suicide, by Sex—National Vital Statistics System, United States, 1975–2015,” CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], 17 March 2017, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6610a7.htm. 
6. “Suicide-rate estimates, age-standardized. Estimates by country,” World Health Organization, https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDEASDR?lang=en.
7.  Kitty Almasi et al, “Risk factors for suicide in Hungary: A casecontrol study,” BMC Psychiatry, vol. 9 (2009), article no. 45.
8.  András Bozóki and Eszter Simon, “Hungary since 1989,” in Sabrina P. Ramet (ed.), Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 204- 32.
9. “Hungary Unemployment Rate,” Hungarian Central Statistical Office, https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/hungary/unemployment-rate.
10. “Hungary GDP—Gross Domestic Product,” https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/hungary.
11. Ronald Inglehart et al, “Development, freedom, and rising happiness: A global perspective (1981-2007),” Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 3 (2008), no. 4, 264-85.
12.  Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 141. 
13.  John F. Helliwell et al, “Happiness, benevolence, and trust during COVID-19 and beyond,” in J. Helliwell et al, (eds), World Happiness Report 2022, 13-52, especially Table 2.1, https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/WHR+22.pdf.
14. Inglehart et al, op. cit. 
15.  Ronald Inglehart and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, “Genes, culture, democracy and happiness,” in Edward Diener and Eunkook M. Suh (eds), Culture and Subjective Well-Being, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, 171.
16. Inglehart and Klingemann, op. cit., Figure 7.2. John F. Helliwell et al, Statistical appendix for World Happiness Report 2022, Figure 13. 
17. “Hungary—World Happiness Index,” https://countryeconomy.com/demography/world-happiness-index/hungary. 
18. John F. Helliwell et al, op. cit., Figure 2.1; “Romania GDP— Gross Domestic Product,” https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/romania; “Poland GDP—Gross Domestic Product,” https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/poland.
19. “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” Pew Research Center, 10 May 2017, http://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-nationalbelonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/.
20.  Anna Gelpern, “The laws and politics of reprivatization in East-Central Europe: A comparison,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Business Law, vol. 14 (1993), no. 3, 357. 
21.  “Property restitution in Central and Eastern Europe,” U.S. Department of State, 3 October 2007, https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/93062.htm. 
22.  Balázs Schanda, “Religion and the secular state in Hungary,” 2009, https://classic.iclrs.org/content/blurb/files/Hungary.pdf.
23.  http://iwenhappinesslessons.com. 
24. John J. Dwyer, “Freedom’s challenges and Youth at the Threshold,” 2022, https://johnjdwyer.com/post/freedoms; “Changing a Nation,” 2022, https:// johnjdwyer.com/post/ changing; David Robinson and Gábor Grész, The Outrageous Promise: A Story of God’s Love Beyond the Iron Curtain, 2010, 252-54. 
25. https://ytl.academy/why-ytl/.
26.  “Hungary has highest number of marriages in Europe,” Hungary Today, 19 May 2022, https://hungarytoday.hu/numberof-marriages-eu-highest-number-hungary-european-unionweddings/; “Family Min: Expanded family benefits correlated with increase in marriages, childbirths,” Hungary Today, 7 August 2021, https://hungarytoday.hu/family-min-family-benefitsincrease-marriages-childbirths/
27. Freedom House, Historical data files available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world.
28. https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/freedomworld/2019; https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/freedom-world/2020; https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/freedom-world/2021; https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary/freedom-world/2022. 
29. John F. Helliwell et al, Statistical appendix for World Happiness Report 2022, Figures 25-27. See also World Happiness Report 2019, Table 2.2.
30.  John F. Helliwell et al, World Happiness Report 2022, 
31. John F. Helliwell et al, Statistical appendices for World Happiness Reports 2018-2022 and data from 2005-2016 included in World Happiness Report 2017 “Chapter 2. Online Data,” available at https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/#appendices-anddata.

Harold Delaney is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. András Vargha is Professor of Psychology at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church and at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, Budapest. Their friendly collaboration has spanned 30 years.