Weakening of social cohesion
Both at local and national levels, the greatest risk factor weakening social cohesion is the erosion of solidarity towards the permanently endangered social groups – elderly, sick, people living in deep poverty and Roma people, people living with disabilities, women and children. Only two thirds of the adult population consider supporting people with disabilities important and this ratio is even smaller when it comes to helping and assisting elderly people. Several comparative European studies indicate that the Hungarian society shows extremely low tolerance to immigrants and those with different sexual identity. Overall weakness of social cohesion is shaded with strong economic and social differences that developed during the past among the different regions. After the change of the political system, the new regime did not mitigate the regional differences, thus there is a visible decline from the West to the East. In addition to Budapest, the most dynamic region in economic terms is Western Transdanubia and – within that – Győr-Moson-Sopron and Vas counties, in particular. Fejér-county has also joined the above two. North-Eastern Hungary is at the end of the rank, since Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, Nógrád and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén counties are the least developed. Naturally, neither Western nor Eastern Hungary is homogenous in terms of socio-economic development. The most underdeveloped county of Transdanubia is Somogy-county but we could also mention certain sub-regions of Zala county, the so-called Ormánság, the peripheral parts in Tolna county, or certain sub-regions in Central Transdanubia, namely the Sárbogárd, Kisbér and Sümeg sub-regions. There are regions even in the most developed Central-Hungarian region, like the Szob sub-region, or the area of Nagykáta and Cegléd, which have less favourable economic indicators than the regional average.
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