Children – Too expensive joy / day

The lowest birth rate over the century. Such a dramatic news in Latvia was announced in the beginning of 2023, reporting 15,535 babies born in 2022. Since then, the situation has only become worse, as last year the ranks of the population were added to only 12,571 children, and the demographers were rightly chanting alarm calls. Natural growth in Latvia has been negative since 1990, which means that the population has decreased every year. In 2023, Latvia had even the fastest decline in population across the European Union (EU).

If the trend continues, in the coming decades, the public will face not only serious labor problems, but even existential threats to survival of the nation.

Are born less

Extremely cynical demographic challenges can also be seen in the positive. The problem of kindergartens will solve the problem on its own, with fewer people mean less environmental pollution, and competition on jobs is also relaxed. Even the missing workers could be replaced by robots and artificial intelligence. But they will not be able to take care of the nation.

We can only reassure ourselves with the idea that the birth curves are slipping down all over Europe. In 2008, 10.6 children were born to every thousand inhabitants, but in 2022 – only 8.7. The highest score is in Cyprus – 11.2 and the lowest in Italy, where only 6.7 children are born per thousand, shows Eurostat 2024 report Demography of Europe. In Latvia, this figure is close to the average block – 8.5. Estonians with 8.6 children per thousand people are similar, but Lithuanians are much thinner – only 7.8. The EU average number is 8.7.