In the first three months of this year, 8 595 deaths were registered. The number is 423 deaths or 4.7% lower than that recorded in Q1 of the previous year when significant increase was recorded at the turn from 2020 to 2021. The highest mortality was registered in March – 2 965 deaths, which is 11% more than in March a year ago.
Decline was recorded also in the birth number. The number of births registered in the first three months of the year – 3 939 children – is 2% smaller than that recorded in the corresponding period of 2021, according to information from the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia.
Regardless of the slight drop in the death rate in Q1, it still was high, and birth rate kept being more than a half smaller than death rate. Over the first three months of 2022, population of the country due to natural movement declined by almost five thousand people.
In the first three months of 2022, a total of 1 396 marriages were registered. It is 136 marriages or 11% more than in the corresponding period of the previous year, however the rate still lags behind the pre-pandemic level – in Q1 of 2019 and 2020 more than 1.7 thousand marriages were concluded.
On 1 April 2022, the provisional number of inhabitants in Latvia accounted for 1 million 870 thousand. Regardless the fact that natural movement keeps being negative, population decline was slower due to smaller registered migration – at the end of Q1 refugees from Ukraine arrived in Latvia, and these people are also included in the resident population of Latvia.
Number of deaths and births down in Latvia
