This paper aims to shed light on work-life balance in Latvia during the state of emergency. The Covid-19 outbreak has led many governments to introduce lockdowns. While imposed restrictions may help to contain the spread of the virus, they may also result in substantial damage to population well-being. The Covid-19 outbreak in Latvia demonstrates the extent and ways in which socio-demographics factors have determined different patterns of behaviour, attitudes, employment changes and harmonised work and life balance. The study describes the chronological development of Covid-19 in the country. It describes labour migration to and from Latvia before the COVID-19 outbreak. It provides geographical features of the distribution of confirmed Covid-19 cases. The extent of the Covid-19 threat at different levels is assessed focusing on the global, national, regional and intra-family level. Finally, work forms and work-life balance are analysed according to geography and age groups.
We herein explore the perception of the geographic environment and analyse the mechanisms that constrain the cognitive processing of spatial information in general. Our guiding theoretical background assumption is that the structure of the spatial environment is a cognitively robust and mutually constrained threefold system relating (1) cognitive topology (comprised of a path and place structure of spatial information and constrained by reference frame-based factors), (2) experience-based functional knowledge (including the effects of socio-economic factors, frequency and familiarity) and (3) linguistic representations (primarily encoded in the prepositional system of a natural language). Here, we focus on (2), i.e. the effect of functional knowledge on the process of acquiring spatial knowledge. We empirically tested adolescents aged 12–17 years to explore the interaction between frequency, familiarity and functional knowledge from a developmental point of view. The social factors we explore are precisely defined and parameterized in our results (exposure to a particular urban area, place of residence, gender, age and factors relating to the environmental and social quality of the local area). Our research shows that there are divergences between the so called objective topology and the cognitive typology of the urban environment that are significantly constrained by intensity of interactions with environment, number of functionally significant places within particular area and age from a developmental perspective in terms of spatial knowledge acquisition.
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This paper links geographies of in-flow international students to the higher education system in Latvia and destination country choice rationales. Latvia welcomes international students from diverse geographies. Besides specific sourcing countries like Germany and India, there are also considerably constant and stable flows from former Soviet countries. International students are both an essential source of revenue for higher education institutions and to some extent, replacement of decrease of local students. This study adopts a mixed-method approach and based on the analysis of official statistical data and survey data. The survey reveals views on decision-making process and motives of current full-time international students in Latvia. The results indicate that to an extent, geography sets the main motives for study choice in Latvia. Seldom Latvia is set as the only priority destination country. On the one hand, among others balanced costs and accessibility of quality education in English attract foreign students, thus providing ‘second chance’ to be successful. On the other hand, Latvia gives the prerogative to have education in the European Union which for long-distance travelled students is a life-time opportunity.
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