RURAL LIVING. LATVIA

Rural Latvia undergoing a diversity of demographic change. As young people leave the countryside the population is becoming older and people living there are becoming increasingly marginalized. Retirement age people are experiencing a very challenging time. Those old people have carried and are still carrying the economic difficulties of the country on their shoulders. They have survived war, deportation, exile and kolkhozes at Soviet Union time.

Now more than third part of pensioners live in poverty. They receive a pension that is less than subsistence level, which does not cover such necessaries as clothes and medicine. Most of old people do not want to feel like a burden to their family and others. Therefore, old people are working hard to get an extra income. Those, who have a garden, are growing vegetables and fruits to get some food for their table.