Improving Living Conditions, Deepening Class Divisions: Hungarian Class Structure in International Comparison, 2002–2018

Abstract

This article investigates the changing relationship of class and the living conditions of individuals in Hungary in comparison with other European countries. Our central question is to what extent class position determines the material living conditions of individuals in Hungary, how this relationship has changed, and how significant it is compared to other European countries. Our analysis is a direct test of the death-of-class thesis in one of the core fields of class analysis. Our results show that there has been a rapid and large-scale restructuring of Hungarian society after 2010, with two notable tendencies. The first is an overall improvement of material living conditions at all levels of the class structure, the other is the gradual solidification and polarisation of class structure.