Analytics, Culture, Forum, Latvia, Society

Artistic activities were practised by 39.2% of rural population and only by 33.4% of urban population. Moreover, residents of rural areas practised artistic activities more often than city and town residents. Out of the total rural population, 5.5% indicated that practice artistic activities daily and 27% mentioned that do that every week (not every day) or several times a month. Whereas in urban areas 4.5% of population practised artistic activities every day and 19.7 – every week or several times a month.

Practice of artistic activities in rural and urban areas by gender and age group; 2015 (%)

In 2015, artistic activities were practised by 51.3% of young people aged 16–24. Moreover, the largest share thereof – 57.2% – was taken by females. Out of the young females aged 16–24, 9.4% practised artistic activities every day and 38.8% – every week or several times a month. Males tend to practice artistic activities less frequently – only 45.6% of males aged 16–24 did that.

Within other age groups artistic activities were less common hobby. Out of the total population aged 25–49, 39.8% practised artistic activities, 31.1% of population aged 50–64, and just 24.3% of population aged over 65. Artistic activities were more common hobby among females almost in all age groups, while within the age group over 65 years the gender gap is rather insignificant.

In 2015, 31% of population aged 25–49 and severely limited in activities people usually do practised artistic activities (as compared to 41% of the same age group population not limited at all). In 2015, 2.7% of population aged 25–49 and severely limited in activities people usually do practised artistic activities every day (as compared to 4.6% of  the population within the same age group not limited at all) and 18.5% did it every week or several times a month (as compared to 25.7%).

More information on practice of artistic activities is available in the CSB publication "Income and Living Conditions in Latvia 2015".

Data on practice of artistic activities were acquired with the help of the survey “EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions” (EU-SILC) of 2015. Within the framework of the survey, 8 thousand households were surveyed, and data were acquired from persons who were at least 16 years old at the end of the 2014.

Methodological explanations:
¹ Artistic activities includeplaying music, dancing, singing, acting, painting, taking photos, filming, writing poetry or stories, etc. and doing that as a hobby.