#Riga baby playlist driver#

The policies target the birth rate quantity, not the quality of life for those children who have been born,” said Putniņa. It doesn’t take into consideration people’s actual situations and needs.

“Policies are based on value judgments: I know what the right thing to do is and we support it. Parents who raise children with disabilities live in permanent crisis. One in every three children are raised by a single-parent, with minimal state support. About 40 percent of Latvian children are born to couples whose relationship is not registered. In Latvia, the social handouts for family support is increasing, but politicians avoid addressing broader issues related to gender equality, such as shared responsibilities or part-time work while still receiving the state support, says Putniņa.įamilies with a single breadwinner have higher risk to become poor if the job is lost or the parent gets sick. These countries also provide a generous social policy and high gender equality. Traditionally, more children are born in France and Scandinavia, where women are encouraged to quickly return to the work while men are encouraged to be involved in raising children. In none of the EU countries the average reaches 2, a figure needed for a change of generations to occur naturally. On average, women in the EU had 1.58 children in 2015. The experience with the first child also matters. The research shows that people often want to have two kids or more, however the real number of children depends on the income and job security as well as the quality of the relationship and support of the family. They connect having children to their own resources, values and how they live their lives.” “If the state says that every family must have two children, then the people will say, yes, it’s a very good idea, but it is not for me. Aivita Putniņa, a social anthropologist, who has researched birth rates, calls it “a demographic panic” on the part of politicians, with little connection to a person’s real life and values.

#Riga baby playlist driver#

This is what the right-wing, anti-migrants National Alliance, the government’s chief driver behind the push to increase the birth-rates, is hoping for when it demands higher financial support for families with three children or more.Įxperts predict small growth, but don’t believe the average can climb above the needed line. For a normal change of generations to take place, this average must increase above 2. However, the current average of 1.74 children per woman is comparatively high, the largest indicator since 1992 and among the top in EU. One in four Latvians will be 65 years of age or older.Īs the number of women in childbearing age diminishes, families with multiple children could slow down the trend. Only 14,000 babies will be born in Latvia in 2030.Īccording to the Eurostat scenario the population in Latvia will fall to 1.6 million from the current 1.9 million. The fall in the number of newborns will be even larger: about one third. Girls who were born at that time are now 27 years old, an average age when women in Latvia decide to have their first child.Įurostat, the EU statistical bureau, calculates that the number of women in childbearing age (15-49 years old) will decrease by 23 percent by 2030 compared to now. These are the reasons why having four children was not a hard choice for Dūzis. Life in the small town, where everything is within reach.

Agnese is lawyer in the agricultural company, her husband Kaspars works on a large farm. Apart from Amēlija and Klāvs, who goes to the second grade, there is also a 13-year-old Kristaps and an 18-year-old Viesturs.

When Klāvs asks to come along to music school for piano practice, I ran out out of the office for half hour,” says Agnese. They said it from the very beginning: it doesn’t matter where I am, the most important thing is that the job gets done. She will repeat the routine later in the evening. After that she put Amēlija for a nap and sat down to work for three hours in front of the computer at the kitchen table. The day when Re:Baltica visited them in Dobele, a tiny town of about 10 000 people, located 75 kilometers from the capital Riga, was different because Agnese, the mother, was taking her youngest to the doctor. The parents of a two-year-old Amēlija also still employ a nanny. Knowing that the kindergarten’s first year means that the child spends “three days there and a week at home”, often the family relies on grandparents for help. The Dūzis family’s youngest has just started kindergarten and got sick once again. Death rate is still bigger than the number of newborns, and there is simply not enough women to have them.