Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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age population will not fall that fast and the number of pensioners will
increase only slightly.
Demographic indicators in Latvia are among the worst in Europe. In the last
decade natural growth of population was negative. According to the
Population Census 2000, the population of Latvia as of March 31, 2000 was
10.8% smaller than in 1989. As a result of migration, the number of people
during the period went down by 189 thousand persons.
At the same time the negative natural growth of population has decreased only
by 8.3%. Lately, the negative growth rate again has a tendency to increase.
The number of newly born in 2001 was by 2.9% smaller than in the preceding
year and the number of deceased – by 2.4% more. Thus, the negative balance
of natural growth of population during the year has gone up by 11.4%.
Birth rate in 2001 was the lowest among the EU candidate countries and death
rate – the highest among the EU member states and candidate countries.
There is an on-going trend of reduction of the average size of a family mainly
due to the dramatic decrease of the number of children. Almost half – 47.9%
of all families are families with one child, 36.1% – families with two children.
The number of incomplete (one-parent) families is rather high – 32.5%,
consisting of a mother or a father with children.
To reach positive changes in demographic processes the Ministry of Welfare
developed the action program for improvement of demographic situation. The
main goal of the program is to secure a qualitative and quantitative
reproduction of people. Strategic directions in implementation are
strengthening of families and promotion of birth rate, raising educational and
cultural levels. Feasibility of the objectives is linked with economic growth of
the country, increase of employment, perfection and further growth of the
system of science and education.
The number of employed persons has not practically changed, however
unemployment rate indicators have improved as the number of economically
active population has gone down mainly due to two reasons – decrease of the
number of population and increase of the number of full time students.