Experts say benefits alone will not raise Latvia’s birth rate

Financial support matters, but it is not the decisive factor in people’s decisions to have children, LSM’s De Facto reported. Birth choices are influenced by values, health, economic conditions and the geopolitical situation, with these factors also interacting with one another.

As a result, there is no single solution for increasing the birth rate. However, some groups are already motivated to have children but are less likely to be reached by existing state support mechanisms.

One such group includes people who plan to start families later in life. Linda Freimane, 40, married two years ago and began trying to have a child soon after the wedding. When she did not become pregnant within six months, she sought medical advice. Examinations found that both of her fallopian tubes had to be removed, leaving assisted reproduction as her only chance of having a biological child.

“I have to trust only medicine and God,” Freimane said.

Natālija Bērza, a gynaecologist, reproductive specialist and lecturer at Riga Stradiņš University, said pregnancies were increasingly not occurring among couples who planned to have children later, after the age of 35.

“Overall, 35 is not particularly old, but in terms of reproduction, that age marks a very significant decline in fertility,” Bērza said.

She added that a large group of patients consisted of women without a male partner who wanted to become pregnant.

Changes since the 1990s

Although Latvia’s infertility statistics are incomplete, data from the National Health Service show a gradual increase in infertility among both women and men.

Together with the trend towards later pregnancies, this reflects changes that began in the 1990s. According to the report, social values have changed, the role of religion has declined, and people have increasingly placed themselves, their wishes and self-expression at the centre of their lives.