STUNNING Latvian women are experiencing a man drought – leaving desperate ladies left with no choice but to hire “husbands for an hour” to do household chores.
The shortage is down to Latvia’s women being better educated, healthier and living longer than men who booze too much and vanish all together.
A glam single lady, Dania, 29, works at festivals where 98 per cent of her colleagues are women.
She said: “There’s nothing wrong with that… but just for the good balance you would want to have some more men to flirt or chat with. It’s just more interesting.”
Her friend Zane agrees: “That’s why all my friends have gone abroad and found boyfriends there.”
With men scarce, services like “Husband for an hour” have boomed, letting women hire men for household chores and repairs.
For a few euros, women can call in a muscle-bound handyman to fix leaking taps, mount a TV, or even assemble flat-pack furniture – no awkward dates required.
Komanda24 promises men with “golden hands” across Latvia, arriving seven days a week to handle everything from electrical wiring to heavy lifting.
Remontdarbi.lv’s service lets women book a “husband for an hour” online or by phone, with the man showing up within 60 minutes – like an Uber for domestic chores.
Whether it’s painting walls, fixing plumbing, or hanging curtains, these hired husbands tackle the jobs men in Latvia aren’t around to do.
The service has become a bizarre modern solution for smart, single women.
High male mortality is behind the shortage, with men dying younger and four times more likely to commit suicide.
“The first time the gender imbalance appears is between 30 and 40,” explains sociologist Baiba Bela.
“In this age group the mortality for men is three times higher than the same age group for women.”
She adds: “Car driving, alcoholism and accidents in the workplace are mainly riskier for men than for women.”
Among the under-30s, there are more men, but by 30-39 there are almost 3,000 more women than men.
Latvian women live 11 years longer than men – the highest life expectancy gap in the EU.
“Macho” culture fuels risky behaviour, says software engineer Agris Rieksts: “It is kind of perceived that it is manly, that the more alcohol you can handle, the more of a man you are.”
Psychoanalyst Ansis Stabingis says the transition to capitalism and economic crises pushed men into depression: “And then they start to use some alcohol or some gambling because they cannot solve that problem.”
“The smartest girls are alone. The really beautiful girls are alone – if they are smart,” says Dace Ruksane, Latvia’s version of Carrie Bradshaw.
“They want to find partners who are equal to them. But a man, having all this choice, doesn’t need to be very perfect. He just sits in front of the TV and knows he can get a woman. And if she doesn’t suit him, he will get another. Smart women simply don’t want to have such men as their partners.”
Eurostat statistics show Latvia has 15.5 per cent more women than men, more than three times the EU average, and the gap only widens with age.
The country’s median age is 44.1, its crude death rate 14.9 per 1,000, and more than 80 per cent of suicides are men – leaving stunning, smart women to fend for themselves.