The overwhelming majority of Central Europeans (70 percent) consider their countries family-friendly, but the population of V4 countries do even more so at 74 percent.
This means that 60 million of the approximately 84 million Central European adult population and 39 million of the 51 million adult population of Visegrad countries consider their countries family-friendly, reveals a public opinion poll conducted by Nézőpont Intézet in eleven Central European countries.
Family-centered nation-state thinking is successful in both Central Europe and within the V4, with 70 percent of respondents in the former and an average of 74 percent in the latter region saying they consider their country family-friendly. It is also telling that in the eleven Central European countries, on average only 28 percent said they did not consider their country family-friendly, and at 23 percent, five percentage points less said the same in the Visegrad Group.
The amount of family allowance has increased in some way in all V4 countries, therefore, these results are not surprising. In Poland, families have been receiving a monthly allowance of 500 zloty (HUF 36,000) after two or more children under the age of 18 since 2016, which may contribute to the fact that 77 percent of Poles consider themselves living in a family-friendly country and only 18 percent do not. In Hungary, as part of the Family Protection Action Plan, HUF 2,228 billion will be made available in 2020 for family support. This is probably why in Hungary 73 percent consider the situation family-friendly, while 24 percent do not. Interestingly, the highest proportion of those not considering Hungary family-friendly is among those who oppose the border barrier (50 percent), are pro-migration (47 percent) and pro-quota (49 percent). In Czechia, where the amount of the family allowance has increased by 150 percent, and in Slovakia, where lots of pro-family measures have been introduced (higher tax breaks, cost-free lunch to children in kindergartens and schools, maternity leave and financial support extended to both parents) 74 and 72 percent say they consider their country family friendly.
However, there is still room for improvement in both the Visegrad Group and Central European countries, as in Austria 86 percent of respondents said their country was family-friendly and only one in ten (12 percent) said this was not the case.
Methodology
The public opinion poll was conducted by Nézőpont Intézet in the Central European region between 27 May and 7 June, 2019. The poll conducted in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia involved 500 respondents in each country or 5,500 in total. The sample was representative of the adult population 18 years old and over for gender, age, region, settlement type and educational level in each country.