Riga, December 4, 2025 – In Latvia, women significantly outnumber men, and the gap is not just statistical; it is felt in cafés, workplaces, dating apps, and, increasingly, in homes where shelves stay crooked, pipes leak, and no one is around to help. The country now has one of Europe’s most extreme gender imbalances: 15.5 per cent more women than men, three times the EU average. The result? A thriving industry of “husband for an hour” handyman services marketed directly to single women who need practical help, and sometimes just a little male company.
Dania, a 29-year-old festival worker in Riga, says the shortage is obvious in everyday life.
“There’s nothing wrong with that… but just for good balance you would want to have some more men to flirt or chat with. It’s just more interesting,” she laughs. Her friend Zane adds that many women her age have simply given up and are moving abroad to find partners.
With eligible men in short supply, companies offering on-demand repairs have stepped into the void.
Komanda24 advertises “men with golden hands” who arrive within hours to fix plumbing, mount TVs, assemble IKEA furniture, or handle electrical work, seven days a week. Remontdarbi takes it a step further: book your “husband for an hour” online or by phone, and a uniformed handyman shows up in about an hour, much like ordering a ride-hailing car.
The trend is not a joke; it is a practical response to a deep social crisis.
Latvian men die far younger than women. The life expectancy gap is the widest in the European Union: women live on average 11 years longer. Male mortality is among the highest in Europe, and men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide. Between the ages of 30 and 40, male deaths are three times higher than female deaths in the same age group. Alcoholism, reckless driving, workplace accidents, and a lingering “macho” culture that equates heavy drinking with manliness all take a heavy toll.
Software engineer Agris Rieksts explains:
“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 links much of the problem to the traumatic transition from Soviet rule: sudden unemployment, loss of status, and the pressure to provide in a new capitalist reality pushed many men into depression and destructive habits.
For highly educated and ambitious women, the situation is especially stark. Writer and magazine editor Dace Ruksane puts it bluntly:
“The smartest girls are alone. The really beautiful girls are alone, if they are smart. 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.”
Latvia’s universities are filled with women, yet many of them graduate into a dating market where the few available men often feel little pressure to grow or commit.
The numbers tell the story clearly:
- Under age 30, men slightly outnumber women.
- By ages 30–39, there are nearly 3,000 more women than men.
- By retirement age, the ratio is heavily skewed toward women.
With the country’s median age now 44.1 and a crude death rate of 14.9 per 1,000, the imbalance is only getting worse.
For thousands of Latvian women, hiring a polite, reliable handyman for an hour or two has become the closest thing to domestic partnership many will experience. The service is practical, affordable, and, in a country short on men, oddly comforting.
As one regular client in Riga said with a shrug:
“It’s not love, but at least the shelf is finally straight.”
