The Iona Institute has warned that Ireland is “on the wrong course” citing concerns about record low marriage and fertility rates, while divorce is at an all-time high.
Using figures from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), the institute pointed out that since 2004 both marriage and fertility have taken an unmistakable dive.
In 2004 there were 5.2 marriages per 1,000 adults, by 2014 the figure was 4.8, and in 2024 it had reached 3.8, the lowest on record when the Covid years are discounted.
The story was almost the same with the Irish fertility rate. In 2004 the fertility rate was 1.98 children per woman. The figure rose briefly to the hallowed 2.1 figure (replacement level) in 2009, before a steep decline, reaching 1.5 children per woman in 2024.
The figures are all the more startling given that Ireland was long famed for its large families. In 2004, Ireland did indeed have the highest fertility rate in Europe, but is now only slightly above the European average of 1.38.
Irish women are increasingly delaying having children. In 2023 the average age of a first time mother in Ireland was 33, the highest in Europe. Ireland also had the highest proportion of mothers over 40 in Europe.
Breda O’Brien of The Iona Institute said: “The 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.
"But 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.”
O’Brien warned that as well as financial difficulties there could be increasing social pressure on people not to get married “too soon”, noting that in the 1980s people got married around a decade earlier than they do now, despite similar economic challenges.
She added, “We 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. This 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 ‘unplanned childlessness'. As a society, we seriously need to debate what is happening and what can be done to change our course.”
