paper<\/a>, by the Iona Institute, which promotes the role of marriage and religion in society, shows that marriage rates and fertility rates move in the same direction, either up or down at the same time, even allowing for far more births taking place outside marriage.<\/p>\nIt says that what is happening will ultimately create serious demographic imbalances in a relatively short time period. Among other things the paper, called \u2018On the Wrong Course: Birth, Marriage and Family Trends in Ireland\u2019 shows that births have plunged in every age group except for the over 40s. However, the increase in this age group is not nearly enough to compensate for the big fall in other age groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The overall fertility rate is now just 1.5 \u2013 replacement level fertility is 2.1 children per couple.<\/p>\n
Further, the marriage rate has fallen from 5.2 people per thousand adults annually in 2004, to just 3.8 in 2024. This is below the EU average of 4.0 (as per 2023).<\/p>\n
The figures included in the report are based on CSO data.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commenting on the figures, Breda O\u2019Brien of The Iona Institute said: \u201cThe fact that our marriage rate and fertility rate are now at the lowest levels ever recorded ought to ring alarm bells. Getting married and having children used to be very normal milestones in life that almost everyone could be expected to reach if they wanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now it seems they are going out of reach for many, something partly connected with the rising cost of living, and in a vital way, to the lack of job security and housing experienced by so many young people.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cPeople are now typically delaying getting married and having children until they are in their thirties, if they ever marry and have children. Aside from economic pressures, we must consider if there is also social pressure not to marry in your 20s because this is widely believed to be too soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average man is now almost 38 years-old getting married, and the average woman is almost 36. In the 1980s, both sexes were about 10 years younger than this, according to CSO data, even though economic conditions were extremely challenging then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breda continued: \u201cAn Amarach poll commissioned by The Iona Institute in 2022 showed that the average person still wants two or three children, and clearly this aspiration is not being achieved by a lot of people considering a fertility rate of 1.5 and falling\u201d.<\/p>\n
She concluded: \u201cWe need to make it both economically and socially possible for people to marry in their 20s if they want, and certainly in their early and not mid-to-late 30s. The more economic and social circumstances make people delay marrying and having children, the less likely they are to ever marry and have children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means a lot of personal heartache and disappointment. Once the problem might have been having more children than you wanted, but now there is a growing problem of having fewer than you want. This is what is called \u2018unplanned childlessness\u2019. As a society, we seriously need to debate what is happening and what can be done to change our course\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plunging marriage and birth rates show Ireland is \u201cnow on the wrong course,\u201d according to a new paper.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[126478,269,5858,61,60,4630,43,3767],"class_list":{"0":"post-253017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-birth-rates","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-demographics","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-marriage","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-society"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}