Geographical mobility of young people and accessibility of activities in Jelgava region

Girts Burgmanis

University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences

Iveta Sproge

Latvijas Universitāte, Ģeogrāfijas un Zemes zinātņu fakultāte,

DOI: 10.22364/fg.15.19

Keywords: youth, geographical mobility, access to education, travel behaviour, Jelgava region

Abstract

After the regaining of independence in 1990 Latvia experienced continuous population decline due to negative natural population growth and net migration. Such changes precipitated a decline in accessible services, particularly in rural regions, and related discussions on the accessibility of services and activities in Latvian municipalities. To investigate the accessibility of services, the travel behavior of young people aged 12 to 20 from home to school and organized out-of-school activities in Jelgava Municipality were analyzed. The data for study were acquired through an online pilot survey (n=117). Results reveal that the accessibility of school and organized out-of-school activities in Jelgava Municipality is relatively high. More than 65% of youth can reach their school or organized out-of-school activity location within 15 minutes. The high level of accessibility is a consequence of locating schools in the largest villages of the municipality. The results suggest that if the optimization of the school network will affect the largest villages of Jelgava Municipality, the level of accessibility of schools and organized out-of-school activities will decrease, i.e., the travel time to services will increase. Hence, assessing the socioeconomic context of young people’s lives – rather than their travel behavior – is recommended.