TÁRKI Social Research Institute Inc.

TÁRKI Social Research Institute Inc. (www.tarki.hu) has 20 years tradition of empirical social science research in Hungary. Its profile includes research on a wide range of issues related to social stratification, labour markets, income distribution, consumption and lifestyle patterns and attitudes, increasingly focussing on market research applications. There are various types of research activities TÁRKI carries out for the clients. The most important part in the activity is social research. This type of work includes

· consultancy and strategy papers for our clients (government agencies and private firms as well)

· developing software and producing microsimulation databases (like on tax/benefit reforms or on modelling election results)

· carrying out surveys and producing research and monitoring reports (on savings, inflation expectations, business forecasts, social trends reports, etc.)

· carrying out political and general opinion polls on a wide variety of issues for a great number of different clients (the list of clients includes Hungarian and foreign central and local government agencies, corporations in various branches like banks, telecom companies and other trades, consultancy firms, international organisations, research and development funds, etc.)

· providing business cycle research reports based on enterprise surveys.

TÁRKI has been active and successful in building up household and enterprise panel studies during the nineties. Its own fieldwork department with its nation-wide interviewer network (700 regular interviewers) carries out some 60 different surveys a year, both on national and local levels. The methods used by TÁRKI include household and enterprise surveys through personal interviews and also telephone surveys.

The TÁRKI Social Science Data Archive collects, stores and publishes a great number of surveys to the social science and business communities nationally and internationally.

The number of the staff is over 30 now, including 14 researchers, but there are a number of further scientists working for TÁRKI on a contract basis. The so-called TÁRKI Group contains a for profit shareholding company (TÁRKI Social Research Centre), owned mostly by the staff, and a not for profit consortium, the members of which are recognised social science research departments from universities, academic and non-academic research centres.

TÁRKI is a member of various international research networks and consortia, like IFDO, CESSDA, ICPSR, ISSP, ESS, LIS, ECPR and we have been contributing to a great number of international research efforts. Recently, TÁRKI, together with IVVM (former CVVM, Prague), CBOS (Warsaw) and PMCG (Brussels) founded the Central European Opinion Research Group (CEORG) for joint and harmonised monthly omnibus surveys in their respective countries.

TÁRKI clients include various government agencies, research funds, international organisations and private companies in Hungary and internationally. Besides the products sold directly to clients, the research outcomes reach a wide general audience, via publications, conferences organised by the institute and the very intensive media coverage TÁRKI enjoys.

TÁRKI regularly publishes research reports in the form of working papers and summary books:

· The papers published in the series called Social Report, launched in 1990 and published every other year since then, analyse the most significant social and economic trends of Hungarian society. The 1990 and the 1998 editions of the series are also available in English. Most recent covers 2004 in Hungarian and in English.

· The series entitled Changing Roles (Szerepváltozások) presents the social and economic status of Hungarian women and men since the end of the 1990's. This thematic publication, structured on the model of the Social Report, is also published every two years. The first volume came out in 1997. Most recent covers 2005.

· TÁRKI's annual, cross-sectional survey called the Household Monitor has existed since 1998. The volumes of the series entitled TÁRKI Monitor Reports (TÁRKI Monitor Jelentések) appear every year.

Selected list of relevant references by clients

UNDP

· TÁRKI produced a Report on Millennium Development Goals: Reducing Poverty and Social Exclusion under the aegis of UNDP. At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, the states of the United Nations reaffirmed their commitment to working toward a world in which sustaining development and eliminating poverty would have the highest priority. The goals have been commonly accepted as a framework for measuring development progress. The Millennium Development Goals focus the efforts of the world community on achieving significant, measurable improvements in people's lives. They establish yardsticks for measuring results, not only for developing countries. The first seven goals are mutually reinforcing and are directed at reducing poverty in all its forms. In 2003/4 a research was undertaken by TÁRKI Social Research Institute in order to prepare country report for the Hungary, which assess the country's progress towards meeting the Global Millennium Development Goals. Report available: here and here.

· TÁRKI was the Hungarian partner in a UNDP project entitled ‹Barriers to Employment Policy Analysis› in 2005. This policy oriented research intended to identify the existing barriers to employment for Roma and suggest possible short and mid-term approaches for increasing the relative employability of Roma in comparison to other groups. The same research was carried out in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In the framework of the project we (1) held several regional and national level roundtables with the various actors involved on their opinions and suggestions in the process of increasing employment opportunities; (2) conducted a desk research on social, economic and legal determinants and the barriers of the labor market, from the perspective of the Roma and other vulnerable and unemployed groups; (3) elaborated policy recommendations and implementation package on employment promotion for the vulnerable groups; and (4) developed project proposals for possible future projects targeting major areas identified to test the policy recommendations.

· TÁRKI was the Hungarian partner of UNDP in the ‹Quantitative and comparable data survey on development problems and challenges of Roma – Vulnerable Groups Survey› project, which was carried out in many South-Eastern and Central European countries in 2004 Fall. TÁRKI recorded data of Roma living in Hungary with a representative sampling. The sample represented the Roma population on the level of households and also on the level of individuals. The quantitative data allowing the calculation of poverty lines, poverty depth, employment unemployment rates, educational level and educational attainment as well as selected health indicators for the Roma community designed to be comparable to similar indicators at national levels. The information were consistent with the individual-oriented indicators envisaged by the Millennium Development Goals monitoring project. An introduction to the project: here.

European Commission

· During preparation for EU enlargement, the European Commission constantly improve its knowledge of the challenges to social cohesion, and strategic policy responses adopted in applicant countries to tackle such challenges. An important milestone was a project, in 2002, on preparation of the task of introducing the new Member States into the on-going process of exchange of good practice within the Union. With that purpose, a series of studies were drawn up with the aim of describing and analysing the social protection systems in the 13 applicant countries on the basis of a common methodology, identifying the major challenges in the social, economic and demographic context, assessing recent reform efforts and highlighting major issues for further reform. TÁRKI prepared the Hungarian study covered issues as pension, health, poverty and social exclusion. The country studies described and analysed, in a common -format, the than existing social protection system and its main features, taken into account the economic, financial, social and demographic context in which such system operates. Final report: here.

· Social Situation Observatory –Social Inclusion is to monitor and report on trends in income distribution and social inclusion across the EU Member States and candidate countries. This involves examining the relationship between the two and the extent to which income, as usually defined and measured, determines living standards and, accordingly, how far households and the people living in them are able to participate fully in society and avoid deprivation and exclusion. It also involves considering other factors which influence living standards and involvement in society, including, in particular, the tax and benefit system in place in different countries and other measures implemented by governments to provide social support, as well as access to employment, decent housing and so on. Report is made for the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity in 2005-6. TÁRKI consortium partners in this project: Applica (BE), European Centre (AT) and Essex University (UK).

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian partner of the international consortium within the frame of the European Network of Economic Policy Institutes (ENEPRI) undertaking a research on Adequacy of Old-Age Income Maintenance in the EU (AIM). The project aims at developing a new approach and new methods for assessing the performance and adequacy of the pension systems with full respect of the sustainability constraint. The project will not go deeply into the sustainability issues but will in general analyse the methodology for assessing the capacity of pensions to deliver adequate old age income maintenance under the condition of overall sustainability of public finance. Partners and consortium description: here.

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian participant in the policy-oriented research Ageing, Health Status and Determinants of Health Expenditure (AHEAD). The project (also within the ENEPRI network) aims at refining the existing estimates of the links between reported states of health and use of medical services. As well as looking at the effects of ageing on health care the research will take account of the link between health expenditure and fertility rates and the demands on health services made by non-native populations. Particular attention is paid to costs of care near death. A study will be made of factors other than demand (such as methods of financial control), which may influence health spending. An important aspect of this research is that the work is carried out so as to be able to provide not only the familiar projections and scenarios but also standard deviations and confidence limits for predictions of key variables such as healthy life expectancy and demand-driven expenditure levels. Partners and consortium description: here.

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian partner of the EAL-NET. The project will demonstrate the economic sustainability and the viability of a new trans-national eRecruitment service addressed to University graduates and to businesses. The EAL system is based on a “graduate record” which every university already possesses for its own management and administrative purposes (personal data, student career, degree, other specialisations, etc.). This record can be enriched with additional data and information provided directly by the graduate just before graduation. EAL-NET is Trans-European in scope, it aims at extending an Italian initiative to six Countries, including Hungary and Poland, and links together the most relevant stakeholders involved in eRecruitment (Universities and Services providers). The project originates from the results of a preliminary feasibility study, which was financed by the European Union in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci programme. Partners and consortium description: here.

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian partner of the project entitled Towards a Lifelong Learning Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System (LLL 2010). This project is undertaken to identify the role of education systems in European countries in the implementation of Lisbon strategy. The project focuses on the contribution of the education system to the process of making lifelong learning a reality and its role as a potential agency of social integration. Project aims to study the effect of relevant country-specific institutions and educational policies on adults' participation in and access to the lifelong learning. That is because educational system is viewed as being subject to multiple and multilevel influences and being part of a country-specific institutional package.

Analyses will be based on the data on (a) individual actors (a survey of adult learners in schools and universities and data from Eurostat driven Adult Education Survey or Labour Force Survey); (b) educational institutions (interviews with schools' management and officials from education ministries); (c) enterprises (interviews with SME management).

Dissemination of findings to policy makers, practitioners and users will be considered to be not only a presentation of the final conclusions, but rather a continuing involvement of these as well as other interested groups into the process of looking for solutions.

· TÁRKI is increasingly involved in international comparative research (e.g. participation in projects such as HWF – “Households, Work and Flexibility”, supported by the Fifth Framework Programme. Flexibility has long been a debate in Western Europe and this debate is now being introduced into the New European Countries as well. In this comparative research a representative sample survey of the following countries was used: the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania. These surveys were carried out in 2001 (N=11194). It was considered how flexible the workforce is by looking at the extent of time, place, contract and income flexibility and the ways in which these are combined. First, the literature and the macroeconomic and macro-social context of flexibility were summarized in contemporary Europe. A comparative analysis was done focusing on the various aspects of flexibility such as the social characteristics of flexible workers in different countries, the association between social status and flexibility, work and job values, flexibility of the youth, etc. At the same time the project compared the demographic, labour market and social policy characteristics and their relation to the flexibility phenomenon in the countries proper. Partners and consortium description: here.

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian partner of the WORKCARE project, supported by Sixth Framework Programme, starting in 2006. This project strongly leans on the results of the HWF – Household, Work and Flexibility project. The WORKCARE comparative research project explores the relationships between, at the, macro level structural changes on labour market, demography and welfare and economic policies and at the micro level changes in individual orientations to work and care. At the macro level the project concerned to measure the quality of society and at the micro level the quality of life and by articulating them by assessing Social Quality in Europe. It is proposed to go beyond the existing literature on individual attitudes and welfare regimes in this project, to integrate perspectives of gender and care into an analysis that encompasses Europe as a whole, including New Member States. In order to do so an analytical framework will be developed that takes into account the orientation, actions, capabilities and satisfaction of actors with the work and care systems in constructing a work-life balance. The work would be based on the analysis of relevant indicators from existing sources and would be supplemented by qualitative interviews from five countries. The project would contribute to key European issues, providing a better understanding of the impact of social policies on work and care, the effects of the competing demands of work and care on fertility decisions and the consequences of flexibility and working times on the organisation of work, care and welfare.

· TÁRKI was involved in another project financed by the Fifth Framework Programme. The main work of the CHER – “Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-economic Research” project was to create a comparative micro database, which contains comparable variables transformed according to a common plan and was built by using standardized international classifications where available. Information in these harmonized datasets is available (a) for households and individuals on the micro level, (b) for single years and (c) as longitudinal information, all of them linked to macro and institutional data. The comparative database contains harmonized and consistent variables and identical data structures for each country included: 14 EU countries, Poland, Hungary, Canada and USA. The data are stored as system files for the statistical packages SPSS, SAS and Stata. They contain identical variable names, labels, values and data structures. Each country file is adequately anonymized and can therefore be rated as a scientific use file. Partners and consortium description: here.

· TÁRKI is involved, as Hungarian partner, in the I-CUE project aiming to start the process of expanding EUROMOD to cover the 10 New Member States and to make EUROMOD easier to use, especially when it is dealing with 25 systems and datasets. Short project description can be found at here.

OECD

· TÁRKI is the Hungarian partner in a collaboration of experts from OECD member countries, who time to time provide data from national datasets based on common assumptions and definitions. The analysis of income distribution and poverty by the end of the 1990s were carried out three waves and based on the main findings of country submissions from national household surveys and other micro datasets. These submissions are based on a standard questionnaire, which uses common assumptions and definitions to increase the degree of cross-country comparability. The OECD “Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee” discusses the documents. The data are used in several OECD publications. Reference: Michael Förster and Marco Mira d’Ercole: Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries in the Second Half of the 1990s: here.

World Bank

· TÁRKI was the Hungarian partner of the World Bank research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), supported by grant from the European Commission, DG Employment and Social Affairs. This research focused on attitudes of 500 biggest companies – both state and private owned – towards the concept of CSR. The research contributed to the knowledge of the actual state of understanding of CSR practices, and importance of the concept for World Bank activities supporting development of the CEE countries.

· TÁRKI produced a background study for the 1998 that World Bank Poverty Assessment review on Hungary. That paper was a part of a project had four different elements. First, a new release of all the completed waves of the Hungarian Panel Study has been prepared and, after supplementing it with a new, comprehensive weighting system, it was handed over to the World Bank research team, establishing empirical foundation of their research. Secondly, a comprehensive overview of longitudinal poverty trends for Hungary is drawn. That paper covered the most important issues of the dynamics of poverty and inequalities in Hungary during the transition years. Third, TÁRKI carried out a cross sectional survey of incomes and labour market position of Hungarian households in 1998. Under the contract, the dataset was released to the WB research team for the poverty assessment study. Data provision and analysis were provided as a consultancy firm to the Bank.

Reference: here and here.

International Scientific Community

· The World Internet Project (WIP) is a major, international, collaborative project looking at the social, political and economic impact of the Internet and other new technologies. Hungary has been participated in this longitudinal, cross-national study since 2001. It is the 5th wave of the yearly survey to be completed in 2005 by a research consortium consisting of TÁRKI Social Research Institute Inc., ELTE ITHAKA (Research Centre of Information Society and Network) and BME ITTK (Information Society and Trend Research Institute). See international project website at: www.worldinternetproject.org and Hungarian project website at www.wiphungary.hu. Based on WIP surveys TÁRKI monitored the eEurope+ and eEurope2005 household indicators for the Hungarian Government since 2001. The statistical data provided by TÁRKI are also used by Eurostat. Beside monitoring studies TÁRKI provided consultancy to the Ministry of Information Society and Telecommunication for the preparation of Hungarian Information Society Strategy in 2003.

· TÁRKI has been taking part in an international comparative programme (International Social Survey Programme, ISSP) since 1986. In the frames of this research a 35-minute-long questionnaire is translated word by word and carried out in initially 5-6, but recently more than 20 countries not only in Europe, e.g. USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Israel, South-Africa and in some Latin American countries. ISSP's topics change yearly but basically compares international municipial opinions and attitudes. So far we have done researches into topics like social relationships, social inequalities, women and the family, attitudes to work, unemployment, religiousness, protection of the environment, national identity. Partners: here.

· ESS is a new international comparative research which set it as an aim to monitor the European countries in the dimensions of sociology and politology. We collect data in the whole country by questionnaires. The first round of the research was made in the fall of 2002 and the questionnaire was also carried out in 20 more European countries. The topics of the research were selected by an international tender. The themes of the first research were: political preferences, international migration, anti-foreigners and civic consciousness. The participants of the research had to send the results to the Norwegian NSD and then the corrected forms were sent back to the researchers on the fall of 2003. ESS records are made in every second year, the next one is planned to be carried out in 2004. The topics were decided on the base of a tender: family and work, economic moral, health and care. Partners and description: here.

Hungarian Government and research funds

· Hungarian Household Panel Survey. The Hungarian Household Panel Survey was a joint research project of TÁRKI, the Budapest University of Economics, the Central Statistical Office, the National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) and several other Hungarian institutions, in the course of which, between 1991 and 1997, a nation-wide sample of 2600 households was surveyed on a yearly basis. The research focussed on the dynamic changes of the labour market, income inequalities, the life prospects of the various strata of the population, and the financial and economic strategies of households. Papers based on the survey are widely accessible in TÁRKI publications such as the Social Report or the Working Papers of the Household Panel (Háztartás Panel Műhelytanulmányok). Partners and reference: here.

· TÁRKI Household Monitor Survey. In terms of its research topics, the Household Monitor is the continuation of the Hungarian Household Panel, without its longitudinal character. Its purpose is the quick assessment of the changes in the stratification of society and in social inequalities. The survey is primarily focussed on issues concerning the labour market and incomes, consumer attitudes, savings, economic expectations and economic behaviour, as well as changing social relations are also included among the subjects of the survey. The survey is supported by several governmental and state institutions, as well as by private institutions through research commissions. The survey encompassing up to 2000 households is normally conducted in late spring and each year a specific volume containing the results is published, available to the public. Also in 2007 an English language documentation and datafile will be prepared and deposited in TÁRKI Social Science Data Archive and in the Luxembourg Income Study. Research Report (in Hungarian): here.

· TÁRKI is involved in different phases of preparation of National Development Plans and, in wider context, analyses and monitoring of EU accession. In 2003 in a joint project with other two economy research institutes a paper was prepared on the short-term economic and social consequences of EU enlargement for Hungary. In a further stage different development scenarios were drawn and their social impact were projected from the points of social stratification, social exclusion etc. Institutional aspects were also investigated with special emphasis on education and labour market. Currently we are involved in a project of National Development Office, aiming to provide solid methodological foundation for analysing social impact of development policy. nfh.hu

· First wave of microsimulation development in TÁRKI was carried out in 1995. Since than model building and IT development have been done on a contractual basis, on the request of Ministry of Finance. For the last wave Ministry of Social Affairs has joined. The Monitor database being incorporated into the TÁRSZIM Microsimulation Model, after a statistical matching to anonymised microdata from tax records (bought from tax authorities) and to consumption records (purchased from the Central Statistical Office). Model is applied for ex ante impact-analyses of planned tax and benefit measures by the government. Description and reference: here.

· TÁRKI conducted several generational accounting exercises. The most recent one produced a time series of intergenerational balances for Hungary for each year between 1992 and 2001. That is to say, the same calculation was performed on the budget of the general government applying the same set of assumptions regarding tax incidence, separation of household consumption to individual household members and other relevant methodological issues in order to get truly comparable results. The time series reveal a strong political business cycle of public spending. The English version is downloadable from here. In another generational accounting TÁRKI separated the long term effects of the main components of the comprehensive 1997 Hungarian pension reform. The paper can be downloaded from here. This calculation was later revised and extended with retrospective data in order to quantify intergenerational redistribution in the Hungarian pension system among full life-cycles of consecutive generations. The results are at: here.