The Central Statistics Office today released the latest publication in its series of Census 2011 results, showing that the number of people who were married in Ireland increased by 9.2 per cent between 2006 and 2011 to 1,708,604 and that 32 was the age at which married women outnumbered their single counterparts while for men it was 2 years higher at 34.
Today’s publication, “Profile 5 Households and Families – Living Arrangements in Ireland”, examines living arrangements in Ireland in terms of households and families.
Deirdre Cullen, Senior Statistician at the CSO: “This report provides an in-depth picture of households and living arrangements in Ireland at the time of the last census. It presents new analysis on divorce and re-marriage, an examination of the family cycle of married versus co-habiting couples, as well as new information on the living arrangements of lone parents, divorced people and one person households”.
The full report is available on the CSO website at http://www.cso.ie/en/census/ along with all the data which is available in a range of interactive web tables, allowing users to build their own tables by selecting the data they are interested in and downloading it in an easy to use format for their own analysis.
Ms Cullen concluded “The living arrangements of families and households in Ireland is constantly changing and this report provides important new information on this intriguing aspect of Irish life. Further details on these and all census results are available in the new mapping application (SAPMAP) on the CSO website. Here, users can find detailed information for a wide range of geographic areas from county level right down to town, electoral division and 18,488 Small Areas. This mapping application makes all the census variables available at local level right across the country and is an important step in bringing the data alive in a fresh and exciting way making it easier for all to access.”
There were 1,179,210 families in the State on Census Night, an increase of 12.0 per cent since 2006, and 55.6 per cent more than 20 years previously.
The share of the population aged 15 and over who were single fell from 43.1 per cent in 2006 to 41.7 per cent (1,505,035 people) in 2011. The married population increased by 9.2 per cent between 2006 and 2011, growing from 1,565,016 to 1,708,604.
Over the fifteen years since 1996 the proportion of the population aged 15 years and over who were divorced grew significantly from 0.4 per cent in 1996 (9,787 people) to 2.4 per cent (87,770) in 2011 - an increase of almost 800 per cent over the period.
There was an increase of nearly 550 per cent in those re-married following divorce or annulment over the same fifteen year period, from 6,641 people in 1996 to 42,960 in 2011. Overall men are much more likely to re-marry with 39 per cent of ever-divorced men re-married compared with only 28 per cent of women.
Over three quarters of separated and divorced men (77.9%) were living in households with no children, in contrast to 44.5 per cent of their female counterparts.
The fall in the average number of children per family in recent years – from 2.0 children in 1991 to 1.8 in 1996, to 1.6 in 2002 and 1.4 in 2006 – has levelled off to remain at just below 1.4 in 2011. The high number of births between 2006 and 2011 (363,500 births) was a contributing factor in this slowdown.
Rural families were larger on average than those in urban areas. The average number of children per family was 1.5 in rural areas, compared with 1.3 for their urban counterparts. Cohabiting couples with children had an average of 1.74 children, while the figure for married couples was 2.09 children.
There were 344,944 couples without children of which 261,652 were married while 83,292 were cohabiting couples.
Over half of married couples with one child belonged to the top three social classes compared with 41.7 of married couples with five or more children.
Men in couples were on average 2.21 years older than their wives or partners. This gap was more pronounced for cohabiting couples (+2.35 years) compared with married couples (+2.19 years).
Only 42.5 per cent of lone parents were at work, compared with 69.3 per cent for heads of two-parent families. Of lone parents 14.4 per cent were unemployed compared with 11.8 per cent of couples.
There were 4,042 same sex couples living together in 2011 of which 2,321 (57.4%) were male while 1,721 (42.6%) were female.
There were 392,000 people living on their own at the time of the last census, almost evenly split between men and women with 194,000 and 198,000 respectively.
The majority of those living alone were single (56.3%), with just under 1 in 4 widowed. Among men 65.8 per cent were single compared with 46.9 per cent of women while 11 per cent of the men were widowed in sharp contrast to 36.3 per cent of the women.
The average number of children born per woman aged 15 to 44 has only slightly changed over the five year period, from 0.98 children per woman in 2006 to 1.00 in 2011. By contrast the total number of women aged 15 to 44 has increased by 5.0 per cent from 924,728 to 971,087 over the same period. In the peak childbearing years of 30 to 34 the increase was sharper – a rise of 15.9 per cent from 166,150 to 192,626.
Women without children were more likely to be educated to third level then those with children, with 58.1 per cent of women without children having third level education, compared with 37.9 per cent of those who had children.
For copies of the publication:
To view and download the publication, visit the CSO website at www.cso.ie/census.
For further information contact:
Shaun McLaughlin on (01) 895 1474
Central Statistics Office, Swords Business Campus, Balheary Road, Swords, Co. Dublin.
Census Enquiries: (01) 895 1460
Fax: 01 895 1399
E-mail: census@cso.ie
Internet: www.cso.ie
Central Statistics Office 20 September 2012
– ENDS –