Total fertility rate of Latvia 1800-2020

In 1800, the total fertility rate in the region of present-day Latvia was 5.2 children per woman; meaning woman born in Latvia in that year could expect to have just over five children on average during the course of their reproductive years. Fertility in Latvia would decline steadily in the 19^th century, primarily due to advancements in healthcare and declining child mortality rates, and also due to economic improvements in the years following the agricultural reforms of 1849, which would see a significant improvement in the living standards of the country’s peasantry. Fertility would decline faster in the 1930s and 1940s, due to the instability and devastation caused by the Second World War and Great Depression.

Following the end of the war, fertility would resume its steady decline until the 1970s and 1980s, when Latvian authorities promoted population growth and implemented financial incentives for mothers. However, with the demographic shifts following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and economic downturn following the adoption of the market economy, women across most former-Soviet states were much more reluctant to have children in the 1990s. By the turn of the millennium, Latvia's fertility rate had fallen to just over one child per woman in 2000. While fertility has recovered somewhat following Latvia’s ascension to the European Union in 2004, total fertility remains below replacement level in the country, and in 2020, it is estimated that the average woman born in Latvia will have just over 1.7 children over the course of her reproductive years.