The authors of the study explain that “invisible residents” are individuals and groups whose quality of life is adversely affected by social and economic conditions, but who are not included in official statistics and do not receive the social support they need.

According to the researchers’ estimates, the number of “invisibles” in Latvia exceeds 369,000, or 27.6% of the population aged 18 to 74. The researchers came up with 14 categories that a resident must fit into at least two to be considered “invisible.”

The category of “low income households” corresponds to 386,000 people – these residents have an income of less than 500 euros per household member. On the other hand, 167,000 people are low-income tenants. 145,000 residents are the sole breadwinners of the family, and 77,000 are low-income divorced. In addition, there are 44,000 low-income active or retired army or home affairs workers in Latvia.

The life choices of this population are affected by various aspects; for example, residents in the “low-income household” category are family-oriented, while low-income divorced people prefer traditional, familiar and proven choices.

49.000 people are people with less than average vocational level of education, unable to work, low-educated, unemployed. There are also 58,000 divorced, 32,000 social workers, 43,000 disabled and 22,000 residents whose benefits are denied, with insufficient education – below the average occupational level.

The life choices of this population are also affected by different factors; For example, poorly trained social workers believe that everything must be “fought for”, while people with disabilities rely more on patience in their life choices.

As the third “invisible population” group, the researchers selected the underfunded population affected by low financial literacy.

While 391,000 residents were not eligible for the loan, 113,000 residents aged 45-54 were rejected by the financiers. one of the sources of finance.

Many of these people’s life choices focus on the well-being of themselves or their families as evidence of their success. It’s also easy for them to fall into the “shadow economy” side because of poor financial literacy.

In Latvia, the proportion of “invisible inhabitants” is the highest among the Baltic states – 20% or 410,000 people in Lithuania and 18.9% or 178,000 people in Estonia.

The study’s authors emphasize that it’s important to discover “invisible citizens,” otherwise human capital will be lost, as well as the risk of social costs, social inequality, and tensions between social groups.