Blueprint to an Early Burnout: Hungary’s Guide to Ending Women’s Careers Before They Begin

*Editorial note: All names have been changed in order to protect the interviewees’ privacy.

Working for an organization that promotes young women’s employment comes with a certain bias: I genuinely believe that, in its best form, work can be a source of freedom and self-fulfillment. Which is why it’s been so striking to watch, even among my own friends in Hungary, how many skilled, ambitious young women have quietly exited the workforce – or never even entered it.

These aren’t women who dreamed of being homemakers or tradwives, nor are they lacking in drive or education. And they’re certainly not the privileged professionals of the early 2000s ”opt-out revolution,” who left high-powered jobs to spend more time with their children. No, these are young women who tried to transition from school to work, and were met with a wall.

Hungary, it seems, has mastered the art of discouragement. From the moment a young woman graduates, the system is ready: no support, no respect, and no clear pathways. Just a long, lonely job hunt, followed by underpaid, undervalued work – if she’s lucky enough to get hired at all.

I spoke with five young Hungarian women who have been inactive for at least two years. Some occasionally work, some have returned to school, and some are simply waiting to quit. But all of them share a common feeling: disappointment. Their stories reveal a country where young women are made to feel lost, unwelcome, and out of place in the professional world.

Take Eszter*, for example, who grew up in one of Hungary’s poorest counties and spent months commuting for informal employment (a type of working arrangement that is in practice or by law not subject to national labour legislation or employment guarantees). Then, relocating for her partner’s job and having to undergo a seemingly endless process of finding a job again. Or Liza*, who returned from the UK motivated to launch her career, only to find herself stuck again and again, working casual jobs in Hungary’s hospitality sector. And then there’s Lea*, who spent five years trying to find a job remotely related to her degree, while finishing her master’s in Budapest.

Their stories aren’t rare; they’re more common than the country cares to admit. While official national statistics present a shiny picture of gender parity, the International Labour Organization (ILO) figures show that the rate for labour underutilization for young (24-35) women is at 8.4% compared to men’s 4.6%.

The trends and experiences aren’t by accident either – it’s a system designed for a purpose. And, as someone who usually strains her mind trying to come up with pathways to employment, I’m happy to settle for less now, sit back in my chair, and share with you the following guidelines for ending women’s careers.

Why wait until employment to crush young women’s spirits? In Hungary, the groundwork is often laid much earlier, right at the dinner table. During my conversations, it became clear that many young women were already demotivated before even applying for their first job. The culprit? A deeply ingrained, generational narrative that paints work as joyless and exhausting.

Women dreamed of creative, fulfilling careers. But what they heard growing up was more along the lines of: work is a burden, a time-sink, a never-ending treadmill. Or as one put it:

“I saw this pattern at home: you go to work in the morning and get back at night, having to do all the housework as well… It’s an unreal task. […] I’m just happier if I don’t have to work 40 hours.”

Could this have come from the former socialist regime pushing the idea of “honest labour” too far, until the band snapped? Or, could these women have witnessed the resentment of their mothers, who began the second shift well before their Western European counterparts ? Or… could it be due to the now dominant conservative picture of the work-based society forcing the idea that any job is better than no job? Who knows!

But without question, these women rarely heard about fulfilling work; and if they could entertain the idea of a career, they soon had to learn that it’s not for them!

Take Liza*, whose vision of work was largely shaped by her father’s dominant presence in the household, despite her mother also working. The message was clear: success at work comes at the cost of your personal and familial relationships.

“For a long time, I believed that if someone is very successful in their work, then they’re not a good person. I know that sounds extreme, but what I saw was that those who are truly successful in business – both financially and socially recognized – are often unable to be present at home.”

The gendered concept of work deterred Liza*, who could not idealize careers as a young adult. Later though, as she began to feel left out, she realized how misleading this narrative can be.

“…men don’t admit how addictive success and getting deeply immersed in projects can be. Instead, they say things like, ‘I have to work – I’m doing it for you,’ when often that’s not really the case. It’s more about the fact that building something gives them immense satisfaction.”

Growing up, they were fed stories of men either nobly enduring the toil of work, solely for their demanding families, or of the terrible and draining careers that left no room for, frankly, any other human relationship. Unsurprisingly, these notions are irreconcilable with what is expected of women. Not only is it not an achievement for women to sacrifice themselves for family, but their raison d’être should be to nurture relationships!

And the idea that work and a fruitful career can be fulfilling or beneficial for oneself and, just as much, for their community? That part of the story rarely gets told.

If a young woman somehow still believes in work after years of discouragement at home, don’t worry, Hungary has a second line of defense: no support to fight employment barriers. For anyone in the country, it can now take one year to find a job, and for young people, especially women, this figure can be multiplied.

The demoralizing process of job hunting, speckled with casual sexism, frequently – and understandably – discouraged these young women from keeping calm and carrying on. They felt out of place or forced to change who they are to be accepted. Some were even met with outright discrimination.

“Even the wording of some job postings made it clear that certain positions favored men. For example, in one role, they explicitly stated that male applicants would have an advantage, claiming that museum work in rural areas could involve physical strain. In another case, the job involved handling books, and during the interview, I was asked whether I could lift a box. I had experience with warehouse work, yet they still felt the need to ask – clearly, because I’m a woman.”

In radical cases, the interviewing process was testing how much humiliation they could endure. Eszter* described one such experience that made her walk away on the spot.

“So, they invite nine people into a room, run some tests and little tasks, and then each person has to sit alone in front of the top bosses and share their life story. There’s nothing legally wrong with it, of course, but the whole setup already shows you what kind of respect (or lack of it) you can expect at that workplace. It felt like being in elementary school, called up one by one to ‘present’ your life. The whole atmosphere was just… weird.”

Despite these difficulties, and in contrast to several other EU countries, Hungary invests only in activating labour market policies without spending on mentoring, training, or education to reduce the rate of discouraged NEET (youth not in employment, education, or training). Girls, remember, any job is better than no job!

But is it? Women’s jobs are frequently underpaid – one of my interviewees jokingly referred to money made there as “pocket money”. So, they rarely allow for the opportunity to build yourself up. Reflecting on the frustrating and isolating process of job hunting, one woman noted that:

“I suppose [providing] emotional support would have been the cherry on top, but the foundation should be that people don’t have to take on every crappy job that doesn’t even align with their career path, or that they simply don’t want, or where the conditions would be really bad. So it’s not just about the salary, but about being able to choose.”

No institutional support and lack of empathy for young women’s preferences – this was the first taste they got of the not-so-professional world. It’s no surprise that some women (for some time at least) completely gave up looking for a job! And if they didn’t? Get ready.

So she made it. She got the job. But don’t worry, this is not the part where things get better.

For many of the women I spoke to, getting hired didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a trap. Low pay, zero empathy, and a complete lack of respect were common themes. And then, there’s the deeply patriarchal workplace culture where discrimination is subtle, systemic, and often shrugged off. According to the ESS 11 survey, fewer than half of Hungarians agree that insulting women at work should be grounds for dismissal. Yet, paradoxically, Hungary leads Europe in believing that men and women are treated equally in hiring, pay, and promotion (69.5%).

“As a young woman, it is very difficult to find a job, because in many places you can see right off the bat that there is a system of subordination and disrespect. The problem is not that you have to wash dishes, but they talk to you as if you were in prison. It’s not even that you work for two thousand forints (5 EUR) an hour, but that you go in every day with deep anxiety and stomach cramps..”

But even beyond the mistreatment, the work itself was a letdown. The system made sure that even if women had grown up imagining adulthood as a time of purpose and professionalism, they were met with boredom, infantilization, and utter meaninglessness.

“What I experienced is that the adult world isn’t how I imagined it. I thought there was a clear order: you resign, the notice period ends, you get paid, and that’s it. But reality showed me otherwise. Once again, I felt like I was being treated like a fool, and that boredom, disinterest in work, and disrespect are quite common.”

“When I was in the uni, I thought that working as an adult would be entirely different from student jobs, but when I started working, I realised that the difference is much smaller.”

Lack of enjoyment in employment made women feel like getting a job became the major barrier to fulfilling themselves. However much they wanted a career and independence, they felt like they could not win in the professional world — as Liza* put it:

“So here is the dilemma: a woman must be financially independent, otherwise she will find herself in a vulnerable position. But at the same time, if she takes a steady job just to make a living, she may never be able to fulfill herself.”

The only glimmers of hope came from outside the country, or at least outside its institutions. Foreign-owned companies and experiences abroad offered a rare taste of respect, flexibility, and even community. Imagine that.

“After [work experience abroad] I was really feeling that maybe I can make a life alone, as a woman, I can become independent from my father… [Abroad] as a young woman, they took me seriously,… when I started working [home] they thought I was an idiot. […] It is not what I thought of as ‘adult life’.”

Should we then be surprised that so many young Hungarians are open to work abroad?

Now, there’s just one final step to complete the blueprint: after thoroughly discouraging young women from working, make sure they don’t just become inactive. That would be a waste, as, economically speaking, an inactive labor force is immensely expensive.

So, it’s not that this model is designed to completely deter women from work, of course not! Let’s be honest: the country can’t afford a typical single breadwinner model for families. High inflation, low economic growth, and reluctant investment has made that ideal impossible since at least 2022. And noticing the issue of labour force shortage, surely, Hungary isn’t deliberately pushing skilled, educated, and motivated young women out of the workforce… right?

So what’s the goal of this bizarre system?

Well… it seems like it serves a higher purpose that women suffer at work. It gently nudges them toward where they’re really needed: the home! Simply put, although the country needs women to work, it does not allow them to have a career and thrive in it, ultimately because that would be too much mindspace for them.

These women showed where the system went wrong. Even despite their frustrating experiences, they still believed work could be liberating and were consumed by the idea of a career (in an ideal world). They have been too distracted… What they should have been thinking about, instead, is their original and ultimate purpose: motherhood.

And here, Hungary excels. While it offers little to no support for young women trying to build a career, it offers generous benefits to those who give birth (and the more kids, the merrier).

Exceptionally, women can become eligible for maternity leave right after they finish school. So don’t worry if you can’t find work, there is already a career path available: be a mother! There are also generous tax exemptions for mothers of two or more children. Nudging you to – at one point – return to work, but only after you brought up the children, of course!

And these types of support are only examples of the broader and even more generous support given to families, in the form of family tax cuts, grants for home renovation, loan exemptions, etc. Pushing women to assimilate into the family unit.

And while I welcome any support that goes to women, and may ease the burden of unpaid domestic labor and childcare, I can’t help but wonder: what about the women who primarily want a career? Those who want professional fulfillment alongside (or even instead of) family life? Right now, they’re being quietly crushed by a system that tells them they’re asking for too much.

Written by Anna Kiss-Pál.

Anna Kiss-Pál currently works to promote youth employment in the context of international development. Originally from Budapest, she relocated twice to settle for now in the city of peace, The Hague. She is an anxious but curious traveller, a big reader, and longs to have fewer working hours to write more.

Illustrated by Dorottya Juhász.

Dorottya Juhasz is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Vienna, working at a creative agency. Her work is driven by curiosity and a love for unusual perspectives, often inspired by organic shapes and patterns found in nature. With a character-focused approach, Dorottya’s illustrations often feature playful figures in simple, experimental styles. Feel free to get in touch via Instagram @letdorabe or email: ddorottyajuhasz@gmail.com.