Abstract
The aim of this paper is to study the educational achievement of Hungarian gypsies and their employment at the beginning of the transformation process. In this paper, those 142683 Hungarian gypsies are studied, that identified themselves as gypsies under the census question “nationality”. Out of the persons of 15 years and older 55.2% did not complete eight grades of primary school. Only 5.1% of Hungarian gypsies completed a level of education beyond primary school. Gypsies having not attended or completed eight grades of elementary education showed to be the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in the first ten years of the transformation process. The gypsies’ educational achievement varies with the size of their place of residence and shows large gender disparities. Considering the fact that educational achievement of children is mainly affected by the maternal level of education, opportunities of young gypsies growing up in the rural periphery are not very promising.
