Press Release Births, Deaths and Marriages in 2015

Date Published: Tue, 31 May 2016

The CSO today released the Vital Statistics, Fourth Quarter and Yearly Summary 2015 reports.

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

Births

• There were 65,909 births registered in 2015 with 33,619 males and 32,290 females, a decrease of 1,553 births on 2014. The 2015 total is 8.0 % higher than in 2005 when 61,042 births were registered.

• In 2015 the fertility rate for Ireland was 1.94 which is slightly lower than the rate of 1.95 in 2014. 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 2015 was 32.5 years. Almost two in five (37.8%) births in 2015 were to first time mothers where the average age was 30.7 years. Over a third (36.4%) of births in 2015 were outside marriage. Of these, 59.5% of the births were to cohabiting parents 

• There were 1,187 (or 1.8% of total) births to mothers aged under 20 years in 2015. This represents a significant fall in the number of teenagers giving birth over a ten year period if compared to 2005 when 2,427 (or 4.0% of total) babies were born to teenage mothers. 

• Births to mothers of Irish nationality accounted for over three-quarters (77.9%) of the births in 2015. A further 2.4% of births were to mothers of UK nationality, with 1.8% born to mothers from EU15 countries excluding Ireland and the UK. Slightly over 11.6% of births were born to mothers from the EU28 excluding EU 15 states and 6.2% to mothers from non EU countries. The remaining 0.1% of births did not state a nationality for the mother.

Deaths

• There were 29,952 deaths registered in 2015, of these 15,150 were male and 14,802 were female. This equates to a death rate of 6.5 per 1,000 population. The 2015 total is almost 9.2% higher than in 2005 when there were 27,441 deaths registered.

• There were 205 infant deaths registered in 2015 giving an infant mortality rate of 3.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. Ten years earlier in 2005, there were 244 infant deaths registered which equated to an infant mortality rate of 4.0 per 1,000 live births. There were 151 neonatal deaths registered in 2015, a neonatal mortality rate of 2.3 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 (9,249 or 30.9%), malignant neoplasm (8,783 or 29.3%), or diseases of the respiratory system (3,793 or 12.7%). Deaths due to accidents, suicide and other external causes accounted for a further 1,439 or 4.8% of all deaths in 2015.

• There were 451 suicides registered in 2015 or almost 10 per 100,000 of the population compared with 459 suicides registered in 2014. Males accounted for 83% of all registered suicide deaths in 2015.

Natural Increase

• The natural increase (births minus deaths) in 2015 was 35,957, almost 6.3% lower than the natural increase of 38,367 in 2014.

Marriages

• There were 22,116 marriages registered in 2015, 91 of which were same-sex marriages. The marriage rate in 2015 was 4.8 per 1,000 of population, the same rate as in 2014.

Irish Babies’ Names 2015

• Jack and Emily were the most popular names again in 2015. 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 each of the last five consecutive years. John and Mary where the names chosen most often by parents fifty years earlier in 1965.

• Of the 65,909 births registered in 2015, the most frequently registered surnames were Murphy (752), Kelly (633) and O’Brien (528).

An electronic version of the fourth quarter 2015, the annual summary of the four quarters 2015 and the Irish Babies’ names 2015 are available on our website www.cso.ie

 – ENDS –