Latvian society is not only "aging" but also tends to postpone family creation. And birth rates are getting worse. Who is to blame and what to do?
In the last 40 years, there has been a growing trend in Latvia towards creating families at a later age, according to data from the Central Statistical Bureau.
In 2024, the average age of mothers was 30.4 years. Women gave birth to their first child at an average age of 28.1 years, whereas in the 1980s this occurred at an average age of 23 years. The average age of mothers at the birth of their second child in 2024 was 31.1 years.
Birth rates among young people are declining: currently, women aged 18 to 29 give birth to less than 40% of all newborns, while four decades ago this proportion was nearly twice as high.
Most children in Latvia are still born within marriage - over 62%, however, among younger parents, half of the children are born out of wedlock. In the 1980s, the share of children born out of wedlock was only about 12%.
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