POPULATIONS AS DETERMINANT OF LATVIA’S SECURITY

Abstract

The conducted analysis aims to indicate the real threat of the depopulation process to Latvia's national security. The aim of the analysis is to examine the pace of changes, to indicate their main determinants and potential effects. The research hypothesis assumes that in the absence of an immediate, radical change in the demographic and social policy of the state, the population of Latvia will decrease to the level of approx. 1 million in the next 40-45 years. The conducted research shows a constantly decreasing natural increase and a high, negative level of migration. The carried out extrapolation of the population number confirms the hypothesis put forward in the study. The slight effect of the measures taken so far by the Latvian government to counter the depopolation process does not allow us to put an end to the optimistic scenarios of changes in demographic processes. An additional problem of the country's security is the issue of, above all, the Russian ethnic minority and the almost 10% share of non-citizens among the country's inhabitants.

Keywords

• demography
• latvia
• population
• population decline
• security