Is prejudice growing in Hungary? Changes in anti-Semitism, anti-Roma feeling and xenophobia over the last decade

Zsolt Enyedi, Zoltán Fábián, Endre Sik

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The paper answers the question of how antisemitism, and anti-Roma and anti-foreigner attitudes, have changed in Hungary over the last decade. The basis of the analysis is the May 2002 TÁRKI survey on topics such as xenophobia and immigration, the social distance from, and sympathy towards, certain ethnic and national groups, anti-Roma feelings and antisemitism. A factor analysis on antisemitism allowed us to conclude that there were three  well-distinguished types of anti-Jewish feelings: political, discriminatory and religious. While the general level of political and discriminatory antisemitism has neither risen, nor declined, the level of religious antisemitism has dropped since 1994. Openly discriminatory anti-Roma opinions became less frequent during the last decade. Despite this, it is noticeable that attitudes towards the Roma remain essentially negative and, in comparison with other ethnic groups, the rejection of the Roma is at a very high level. Over the past five years the proportion of the adult population characterized by an openly xenophobic attitude has varied between 26 and 43 per cent. Xenophobia is most often exhibited by those who are older, less educated and temporarily or permanently excluded from the labour market. The open rejection of refugees is connected to a negative perception of the social effects of immigration. Almost three-quarters of respondents saw a link between immigration and the rise in crime, and more than half agreed with the assertion that ‘immigrants take jobs away from people born in Hungary’.

p { line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm; background: transparent }
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSocial Report 2004
EditorsTamás Kolosi, István György Tóth, Gy Vukovich
Place of PublicationBudapest
PublisherTÁRKI Társadalomkutatási Intézet Zrt.
Pages363-385
Number of pages23
StatePublished - 2004

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Is prejudice growing in Hungary? Changes in anti-Semitism, anti-Roma feeling and xenophobia over the last decade'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this