CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Evetovits, Emma |
|---|---|
| Title | A Pronatalist Paradox? (Un)certainty and Choice in Middle-Class Women's Reproduction under Pre-emptive Pronatalism in post-2010 Hungary |
| Summary | Since 2010, the Hungarian family policy has undergone a marked shift toward selective and financialized pronatalism, where state support for families is increasingly conditional on childbearing promises and traditional family forms. While critical literature has identified the illiberal and exclusionary nature of these policies, less is known about how they are experienced by women who are included—those deemed eligible for pre-emptive reward schemes such as the CSOK housing subsidy and Babaváró Loan (BL). Through a qualitative analysis of 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews with middle-class mothers living in Pest County, this thesis examines how women’s reproductive decision-making and intimate lives are shaped by pronatalist imperatives. I argue that the decision to take up these schemes is not a one-off choice, but the beginning of a long-term entanglement with the pronatalist state—one that is financial, contractual, and deeply uncertain. While CSOK and BL are framed as generous support systems to help achieve reproductive plans, I show that they operate as pre-emptive pronatalist instruments, binding an array of reproductive choices to financial obligations in ways that limit women’s ability to change their minds. Far from alleviating uncertainty around reproduction and care, these policies often deepen it, requiring women to unevenly bear the consequences of long-term decisions made under pressure. Rather than focusing on its exclusionary nature, this thesis challenges Hungary’s contemporary pronatalism through an exploration of the costs of inclusion—revealing how even among the ‘deserving’ middle class, access to choice is stratified. Women’s experiences differ sharply depending on their proximity to other intersecting sources of vulnerability, such as chronic illness, unstable income, (in)fertility, or dependence on a spouse. Ultimately, I argue that these financialized family policies repurpose their reproductive trajectories into tools of pronatalist surveillance that entrench state presence in the most intimate aspects of life: where and with whom one lives, how many children one has, and when. Through a critical account of Hungary’s expanding pre-emptive pronatalism, this thesis sheds light on how illiberal states extract compliance not through overt force but through the quiet coercion of conditional support and normative rewards. |
| Supervisor | Fodor, Éva |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/evetovits_emma.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2025, Central European University