Press Release Births, Deaths and Marriages in 2014

Date Published: Fri, 29 May 2015

The CSO today released the Vital Statistics, Fourth Quarter and Yearly Summary 2014 reports.

Some of the key points highlighted in the Yearly Summary report are as follows:

Births

• There were 67,462 births registered in 2014 with 34,785 males and 32,677 females, a decrease of 1,468 births on 2013. The 2014 total is 8.6 % higher than in 2004 when 61,684 births were registered.

• In 2014 the fertility rate for Ireland was 1.95 which is slightly lower than the rate of 1.96 in 2013. The fertility rate represents the projected number of children a woman would have if she experienced current age specific fertility rates while progressing from age 15-49 years. A value of 2.1 is generally considered to be the level at which the population would replace itself in the long run, ignoring migration.

• The average age of mothers for births registered in 2014 was 32.3 years. Almost two in five (38.1%) births in 2014 were to first time mothers where the average age was 30.5 years. Over a third (36.3%) of births in 2014 were outside marriage with 57.7% of the births outside marriage to cohabiting parents.

• There were 1,253 (or 1.9% of total) births to mothers aged under 20 years in 2014. This represents a significant fall in the number of teenagers giving birth over a ten year period if compared to 2004 when 2,560 (or 4.2% of total) babies were born to teenage mothers.

• Births to mothers of Irish nationality accounted for over three-quarters (77.7%) of the births in 2014. A further 2.2% of births were to mothers of UK nationality, with 1.7% born to mothers from EU15 countries excluding Ireland and the UK. Almost 11.8% of births were born to mothers from the EU28 excluding EU 15 states and 6.4% to mothers from non EU countries. The remaining 0.2% of births did not state a nationality for the mother.

Deaths

• There were 249 infant deaths registered in 2014 giving an infant mortality rate of 3.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. There were 184 neonatal deaths registered in 2014, a neonatal mortality rate of 2.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. Neonatal deaths are deaths of infants at ages under 4 weeks.

• Almost 4 in 5 deaths were from either diseases of the circulatory system (30.6%), malignant neoplasm1 (30.5%), or diseases of the respiratory system (11.6%). Deaths due to accidents, suicide and other external causes accounted for a further 5.4% of all deaths in 2014.

• There were 459 suicides registered in 2014 or 10 per 100,000 of the population compared with 475 suicides registered in 2013. Figures for 2014 shows a decrease (of 7% from 396 to 368) in male suicides from 2013. Males accounted for 80% of all suicide deaths in 2014.

Natural Increase

• The natural increase (births minus deaths) in 2014 was 38,367, slightly lower than the natural increase of 38,912 in 2013.

Marriages\Civil Partnerships 

• There were 22,045 marriages registered in 2014 which was 1,365 more than in 2013. The marriage rate in 2014 was 4.8 per 1,000 of population versus 4.5 in 2013.

An electronic version of the fourth quarter 2014 and the annual summary of the four quarters 2014 are available on our website www.cso.ie

Irish Babies’ Names 2014

• Jack and Emily were the most popular names again in 2014. Jack has been the name chosen most often for baby boys born in Ireland each year since 2007. Emily is the name most favoured by parents for their new born baby girls’ in the last four consecutive years.

• John and Mary were the names chosen most often by parents fifty years earlier in 1964.

• Of the 67,462 births registered in 2014, the most frequently registered surnames were Murphy, Kelly and Byrne.

The Irish babies’ names 2014 release is also available on our website www.cso.ie

 – ENDS –