Statistics of illegitimate children in Latvia

The statistics of birth cases out of wedlock were gathered in the Baltic provinces of the Russia Empire. I do not have the data in full extent, only some figures. The percentage of illegitimate births for the Kurzeme [Kurland] province /SJGK/ was:

Year	%
1859	4.86
1860	4.10
1861	3.95
1862	4.03

It is mentioned in the source that the births of the Old-believers are counted out from this statistic, however.

The statistics for total Vidzeme [Livland] province (including the Estonian part) in 1902, when 39, 348 children were born, and 2621 of them were illegitimate, give the rate 6.6%. In Riga for 1899 the figures were the following - 9482 born and 811 or 8.5% illegitimate. These data are from /KV, vol. 2/

I can also share with you the information taken from the book of U.Niedre Iršu dārzs. Rīga 1993 that in fact is Pakalns family history. The author has counted up in the appropriate church book that there were 7 illegitimate children among 111 newborn babies in Aumeisteri parish in 1891 (6.3%).

Earlier in the 19^th century the figures were lower, but they were not zero. Really, a report of Trikāte [Trikaten] Pastor Johannes Pohrt for 1820 informs that in that year 235 children were christened in this parish and 3 of them (1.3%) were born illegitimate. I am going to publish the report in its full extent later.

This data give impression that extramarital sexual relations were not rare at all, taking into account the fact that a single sexual event can not guarantee the birth of a child.

In independent Latvia the birth statistics were gathered in full amount. The Yearbook of Statistics for 1923 contains data on the birth of illegitimate children. The table of their rate by religions in 1923 follows:

Religion	Total births	Illegitimate children	Percentage of illegitimate children	Month of maximum percentage of illegitimate births
Ev.-Lutheran	17 749	1 181	6.65	July 7.57
Catholics	13 260	552	4.16	October 5.30
Russsian-Orthodox	5 083	265	5.21	March 7.89
Old-believers	3 548	243	6.85	July 11.29
Jews	1 912	28	1.46	September 2.94
Others or Unknown	244	55	22.54	January 44.41
Total	41 796	2 324	5.56	December 6.20

I also copied in this table the months of the maximum births of illegitimate children and the appropriate percentage, because the differences sometimes seem significant. May be it would be interesting to know that the month of maximum total birth rate was March (4 068 children were born) and of minimum birth rate - December (3 211 children).

The most surprising in this statistics is the great percentage of illegitimate children for Old-believers. May be the marriages in this Church were not always appropriately registered in civil institutions, but the children were to be registered there from 1922. On the other hand, there were some groups of the Old-believers who denied the marriage as itself from religious point of view, which increased the number of illegitimate births. These groups were active in Riga at the beginning of the 19th century, but I do not know what influence they had in the 1920s.

The similar data about the rate of illegitimate births for 1930 are presented in the next table:

Religion	Total births	Illegitimate children	Percentage of illegitimate children	Month of maximum percentage of illegitimate births
Ev.-Lutheran	16 428	1 383	8.42	January 10.40
Catholics	12 268	888	7.34	May 8.30
Russsian-Orthodox	3 863	313	8.10	May 9.36
Old-believers	3 393	363	10.70	June 13.94
Jews	1 508	41	2.72	August 5.36
Others or Unknown	375	119	31.73	November 46.67
Total	37 835	3 107	8.21	May 9.11

This table shows increase in the percentage of the children born out of marriage that was especially great for Catholics and Old-believers.

For 1938 the general statistics of illegitimate births by religion was not published, only the statistics of illegitimate first births by religion. That year totally 36,386 babies were born and 3,450 (9,48%) of them were born out of wedlock. The percentage of illegitimate births for the first births was much greater as the following table demonstrates.

*Religion*	First births
*Religion*	legitimate	illegitimate	Total	% of illeg.
Lutherans	5,909	775	6,684	11.6
Catholics	3,011	691	3,702	18.7
Orthodox	1,075	277	1,352	20.5
Old-Believers	658	248	907	27.3
Moses faith	610	24	534	4.5
Others and unknown	16	2	18	11.1
Total	11,279	2,017	13,296	15.2

This table shows that the rate of illegitimate births for the Old-Believers was still very high.

More general statistics are available in the book Latvija skaitļos 1938, though in this source no information about religions is published. The following table was published with share of illegitimate children in various regions of Latvia.

Year	Rīga	Vidzeme (Livland)	Kurzeme (Kurland)	Zemgale	Latgale	Total for Latvia	Urban areas	Rural areas
1925	13.14	7.14	9.26	7.10	4.30	7.86	10.95	6.13
1930	12.78	8.51	9.52	10.79	5.14	8.21	12.10	6.38
1935	11.47	10.98	11.06	12.60	5.63	9.17	11.69	8.24
1936	11.43	11.84	10.13	13.45	5.99	9.52	11.42	8.79
1937	10.33	11.85	11.13	13.29	5.90	9.55	10.86	9.02

The explanation of the region names can be found in the review of administrative history except Zemgale that corresponds to the Eastern part of Kurzeme province of the Russia Empire. The relatively low figures for Latgale region can be accounted for the influence of Catholic religion, the main religion there; here also lived relatively many Jews that lowered the figures, but, on the other hand, Old-believers, who mainly lived in Latgale, showed rather great percentage of illegitimate births. In any case, it is clear that on average almost each 10^th child was born out of marriage at the end of the 1930s.

It is rather easy to understand why in 2 years from 1923 (see, the table above) till 1925 the percentage grew so dramatically - from 5.56% to 7.86%. Obviously, it was because during that period war refugees, war prisoners and Latvian riflemen came home from Soviet Russia and started appropriate activities.

I wonder why the figures grew so fast in Zemgale region and in 1937 reached the level of postwar Riga city. Could it be a result of the activities of many (20-30 thousand) seasonal agricultural workers from Latgale, Lithuania and Poland who worked there?