All the employees face the challenge of finding the right work–life balance. The ability of employees to deal with the successful combining of work, family responsibilities, and personal life is crucial for both employers and family members of employees. During the COVID-19 emergency situation, many people around the world were forced to work remotely. Initially, there were observed some certain expectations about the possibility of working from home as a positive factor that will promote work–life balance. However, over time, negative tendencies were also revealed, as employees were only one call or message away from the employer, and uncertainty and leisure time with family often created more stress. As many organizations and individuals were not ready for this sudden change, many mistakes were made, which further raised the issue of work–life balance. The aim of the research was to evaluate the flexibility of reconciling work and private life of Latvian employees in various socio-demographic groups during the COVID-19 emergency situation in spring 2020, to investigate how family life influenced employees’ ability to perform work duties, to find out if employees had any additional housework responsibilities and how their workload changed concerning housework amount during the COVID-19 emergency situation. The research is based on the data obtained in the survey of the Latvian employed population, which was conducted within the framework of the Latvian National Research Programme Project “CoLife” in the second half of 2020. As a result, the hypothesis of the research that all groups of employees experienced work–life balance difficulties during the COVID-19 emergency situation has been partially confirmed, i.e., women in the 18–44 age group and respondents with minor children in the household more likely faced difficulties of work–life balance. The scientific research methods that were used in the research are the monographic method, content analysis, survey, data processing with SPSS to determine the mutual independence of the data from the questionnaires.

The aim of the article is to study safety and sustainability of differentiation of performance of internal regions (NUTS 3) in the EU countries measured by the Sub-national Human Development Index (SHDI). The authors examine differentiation of the SHDI of internal regions in the EU countries by means of correspondence of distribution of this indicator [SHDI] of regional performance to Gauss curve, as well as by analyzing the SHDI of internal regions in the EU countries with the help of the coefficient of variation. As follows from the research, the authors proved that differentiation of regional performance in the EU over the last three decades were not chaotic but they were subjected to certain regularities: the distribution of performance of internal regions is normal, with metropolitan areas almost always being leaders of regional performance; regional differences in the area that is now the EU were increasing during the collapse of the Eastern European Socialist Bloc in the early 1990s, and they were declining later, as the regions adapted to the new conditions. So, identified regularities in performance of internal regions (NUTS 3) in the EU countriesnormal distribution and spatial convergencehave been considered by the authors as safe and sustainable for further development of the whole EU and its countries.

Activities in the field of agriculture deal with plants and animals constituting biological assets of the sector. From the point of view of accounting and valuation, biological assets is a scarcely investigated topic in Latvia, as well the object of the research only in general terms is reflected in Latvian legislation. That leads to confusion and uncertainty in evaluation and accounting of biological assets in the practical accounting. The subject of the study: evaluation and accounting of biological assets. The aim of the study is to explore and analyse problems of accounting and evaluation of biological assets in Latvia and to propose solutions. One of the research tasks is to explore the current legal base for evaluation and accounting of biological assets provided in the national legislation, to evaluate how it complies with the international accounting standards and to analyse the experience of other countries. The challenging issues of evaluation and accounting of biological assets in Latvia are defined in the research, possible solutions for improving the quality of accounting of biological assets are developed proposing the necessary amendments to the legislation and revisions to the methodological documents. Methods of the research: monographic/descriptive method, document analysis, and graphical analysis.

Several individual factors like older age and chronic diseases have been linked with more severe symptoms often leading to hospitalization and higher mortality from COVID-19. Part of adults with such factors is still active in the workforce. The objective of the study was to identify measures taken by the employer to protect them and to investigate reasons for low protection of vulnerable workers during the 1st wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Answers from 1000 workers collected via web-survey and results from 10 focus group discussions were analyzed. Only 31.5% of respondents mentioned that their employer had identified existing vulnerable groups and offered specific measures to protect them. Moving vulnerable workers away from the workplace was the most frequent measure (e.g., transfer to the back-office without contact with clients, telework, paid vacations, paid downtime). Most employers do not see elderly workers and workers with chronic diseases as risk groups, thus are not specifically protecting them. Instead, several employers have included workers critical for business continuity in their risk group. Others had not taken measures because of the lack of information due to general data protection regulation. Poor communication and lack of interest of employers to ask their workers if they need special protection is the topic to be addressed at the national level.

<p>Methodologically this research is based on the approach of many social scientists who argue that there is a bidirectional link: one runs from human capital development to economic growth and overall human development, when human capital helps increase national income and society development; the other runs from economic growth to human capital development, as the resources from national income are allocated to activities contributing to human capital development. The study aims to empirically verify the existence of this interaction by carrying out a correlation analysis of the human capital development level among 120 countries, assessed by the Human Capital Index, and the world's national economic development level, as demonstrated by the Global Competitiveness Index, as well as the level of development of the world's nations (societies) as demonstrated by the Human Development Index.</p>The result of the analysis empirically demonstrated a strong link between the human capital development with the country's economic (r = +0.944, p = 0.000) and national development (r = +0.882, p = 0.000) in total by all countries. Nevertheless, carrying out the correlation analysis by groups of countries, which are divided according to the calculation methodology of the Global Competitiveness Index, depending on their stage of economic development, the relationship between human capital development and nation’s development is becoming weaker in some groups of countries, with the remaining strong correlation between the development of human capital and the economic development of a state in all groups of countries. This means that only highly developed human capital can contribute to the country's economic development, and vice versa, national economic performance increases human capital development in the framework of effective development policy. On the other hand, not always a close interaction between nation’s development and human capital development can be faced, since a highly developed human capital means the quality of the developed human capital