Mortality trends in Finland and Latvia

This article compares the development of mortality in Finland and Latvia from the pre-World War II time to the 1980s. This comparison is particularly interesting, because both the socioeconomic conditions and the levels of mortality were relatively similar in these countries in the 1920s and 1930s. Since the Second World War the economic and social development of Finland has differed from that of Latvia, which was incorporated into the Soviet Union. The differences in mortality trends between Finland and Latvia may thus shed light on the effects of the Soviet regime on mortality. The detailed analysis of the post-war mortality in Latvia has been virtually impossible until recently. Up to the end of the 1950s there were practically no open publications on mortality. From the beginning of the 1960s to the mid-1970s the statistical yearbook of Latvia published only a few selected indicators of mortality and life expectancy. From the mid-1970s till the mid-1980s the publication of these data stopped altogether. Limited information was included in bulletins and statistical collections that were meant for restricted circulation. The situation changed radically in 1988— 1989 when institutions of statistics essentially broadened the scope and content of published data on mortality, including age-specific death rates and mortality by cause of death.