Migrants Are Inevitable: Latvia Loses One Cesis Every Year

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“Either we close hospitals because there are no nurses, or we need immigration,” Latvian business raises alarm over the 'demographic pit.'

Aigars Rostovskis, President of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry:

– In the coming years, Latvia will lose about 18,000 residents annually — this is the population of a city, for example, Cesis or Tukums. As a result, in 15 years, Latvia's population will decrease to 1.6 million people.

Economic development is only possible with a high birth rate. If the birth rate is low, immigration is needed. With a declining population, the economy cannot develop — this is something everyone needs to understand. There will be stagnation or decline, and we as a society will not be able to cover social needs, infrastructure.

Some of the Latvians who left are returning, but these are mostly older people. Young people — those who are 20, 30, 40 years old — do not return. The structure of society is changing, it is aging.

We need to make a decision at the socio-political level: we need intelligently organized immigration. Without this, it won't work. And we must understand that there is already a strong competition for such people, and it will only intensify — birth rates are falling in the entire Western world, and China and Japan are in a very difficult situation.

Soon it will become very specific: either we close hospitals because there are no nurses, or we need immigration. Or we cannot repair roads, or we need immigration. This is simply the reality.

Nuances of Demography

Data from the Central Statistical Bureau shows that over the past 40 years:

In 2024, women had their first child at an average age of 28.1 years, whereas in the 1980s this occurred at around 23 years. The average age of a mother at the birth of her 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, whereas four decades ago this share was almost twice as high.
Most children in Latvia are still born within registered marriages — over 62%, however, among younger parents, half of the children are born out of wedlock. In the 1980s, the share of births outside of marriage was only about 12%.