More than a tenth of Latvian population born in other countries

Take note – story published 1 year ago

Latvia's cosmopolitan credentials may be stronger than many think with Eurostat data published November 24 suggesting that more than one in ten people in Latvia was born in another country, and that more than one in five people has at least one foreign-born parent. 

In 2021 in the EU, 80% of the persons residing in private households aged 15-74 years were native-born with two native-born parents; 13% were foreign-born; 4% were native-born with one foreign-born parent; and 3% were native-born with two foreign-born parents. 

In Latvia in 2021, 64% of the persons residing in private households aged 15-74 years were native-born with two native-born parents; 13% were foreign-born; 13% were native-born with one foreign-born parent; and 8% were native-born with two foreign-born parents (all figures rounded down). 

Foreign born residents in EU countries, 2021
Foreign born residents in EU countries, 2021

This information comes from a series of articles on foreign-born people and their descendants

In fact, Latvia comes second only to famously cosmopolitan Luxembourg among EU countries when it comes to the proportion of people either born elsewhere, or with at least one parent born elsewhere.

Foreign born population in EU countries, 2021
Foreign born population in EU countries, 2021

Delving deeper into the data, some obvious differences to Luxembourg are apparent. Just 11.5% of Latvia's foreign-born residents come from other EU member states, while 88.5% come from third countries. For the EU as a whole, these figures were 29.3% and 70.7% respectively. For Luxembourg they were almost the reverse, at 76.6% and 23.4%.

Indeed, the highest shares (88.5-96.0 %) of foreign-born persons born in a non-EU country were in the three Baltic Member States: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. In Lithuania, this was combined with a relatively low share of foreign-born persons (5.2 %), whereas the share of the foreign-born persons in Latvia and Estonia (both 13.4 %) was just over the EU average.

The highest shares of foreign-born persons who had the citizenship of a non-EU country or who were stateless were in Estonia and Latvia (both over three-fifths).

However, the main takeaway from the datasets is that Latvia is the EU's second most cosmopolitan country. You read it here first.

 

Foreign born population in EU, 2021
Foreign born population in EU, 2021

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