President Novák to women: It's not worth giving up having children just because you love your job

Hungarian President Katalin Novák told Vatican Radio's Hungarian-language programme that Pope Francis was surprised by the results of Hungarian family policy – state news agency MTI writes. The president herself emphasized that she and the Pope spent much time talking about the situation of families: they touched on helping traditional families, as well as how often nowadays children encounter the harmful approach that they are a burden and a bother, that because of their ecological footprint they are a threat to the survival of the planet, and stand in the way of professional fulfilment.

Ms Novák said that she considers it her personal commission to tell young women:

it's not worth giving up having children just because you love your job and want to be fulfilled in your profession.

The timing of Novák’s above sentence is especially interesting, since it was yesterday that the news broke of the survey and analysis published by the State Audit Office which claims that the significant over-representation of women in higher education in Hungary may result in demographic problems, as this makes finding a spouse harder, which might lead to a decrease in the number of those bearing children.

In addition to reiterating the love of family among Hungarians, Novák also stressed that the harmful ideology which aims to subvert traditional families must be rejected. The head of state said that Pope Francis was really surprised by the results of the Hungarian government’s family policy, namely, that the number of marriages has doubled and the number of abortions has been reduced by half in the country. She said that he sadly stated that in most of the developed countries and across Europe, marriage has been losing popularity.

At the same time, on Friday, the Central Bureau of Statistics (KSH) published the preliminary demographic data on the number of births, marriages and deaths in Hungary: the number of all three has decreased.

Between August 2021 and July 2022, the number of births fell by 1.2%, deaths by 8.8% and marriages by 7.9% compared to the same period a year earlier.

Katalin Novák also said that she personally delivered an invitation to Pope Francis, inviting him for a longer visit to Hungary than last year’s was. The Pope has accepted the invitation.