Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LABOUR MARKET
REGULATION IN HUNGARY
The first observation to be made from the
table above is that gender does not influence
the answers of the participants in any interview
period. Educational background, however, had
a significant effect in T1 period: those who
completed vocational school are more likely
to agree with the statement ‘Government
should no do anything against illegal work’
than the reference group. Employment status
influenced answers in the T1 and T2 periods:
the unemployed are more likely to agree
with the statement ‘Government should not
do anything against illegal work’ than the
reference group. While those who are working
full- time are more likely to agree with the
statement ‘Government should prevent all
illegal work’ than the reference group. The
effect of the employment status disappears in
the T3 session.
Regarding age, those over 55 are more likely to
agree with the statement ‘Government should
prevent all illegal work’ than young people in
the representative sample.
We can notice that fewer variables have a
significant effect in the small groups than in the
representative sample. In the pre-deliberation
session, only full-time work and the knowledge
of a foreign language have significant effects
on the dependent variables. Those who speak a
foreign language are more likely to agree with
the statement ‘Government should
prevent all illegal work’ than those
page 190 who do not speak a foreign language.
In the post- deliberation group, only
the 30-55 age group has a significant
effect: they are more likely to agree with the
statement ‘Government should prevent all
illegal work’ than the reference group. The third
hypothesis has been confirmed by these results.
We can draw the conclusion that working
illegally is a defensive strategy of people whose
status is unfavorable in the Hungarian society.
2.9. Government should cut taxes versus
spend more on education, health care and
pensions
Hungary is among the countries where the tax
rates are high. Tax awareness is very low and
people do not know much about the tax system.
In addition, voters in Hungary falsely perceive
the state role in the social sector and the cost
of state programs (Csontos, Kornai, & Tóth,
1996). For example, the majority of people
underestimate the cost of pensions and medical
services, while they overestimate the cost of
social benefits. Sometimes they do perceive the
relationship between social benefits and the
tax rate. This question examined what people
think the government should do: decrease taxes
or spend more on education, health care and
pensions. The respondents were asked to what
extent they agree with the given statement on
a seven degree scale. One indicates that the
respondent totally agrees with the following
statement: Government should decrease taxes even
if this means less funding for education, health care
and pension. Seven means that one totally agrees
with the following statement: Government
should spend more on education, health care and
pension. The results of each questioning session
are shown in Table 42.