Almost one in three (32.3%) of people aged 65 years and over considered their overall life satisfaction to be high, compared to a quarter (24.7%) of those aged 25-49 years.
The population of persons aged 85 years and over is projected to increase from an estimated 104,300 in 2027 to 389,400 in 2057.
The old age dependency ratio, which expresses the population aged 65 years and over as a percentage of the population aged 15-64 years, is projected to increase from 25% in 2027 to 49.8% in 2057.
There were 131,400 people aged 65 years and over in employment in Quarter 2 2025 compared to 103,900 in Quarter 2 2021, a 26% increase.
More than one in ten (11%) of those aged 75 years and over reported experience of discrimination in the past two years compared to almost three in ten (29%) people aged 25-34 years.
Three in five (59.9%) people aged 75 years and over walked to get to and from places at least three days a week in 2024, compared to 85.2% of those aged 18-24 years.
There are many ways to help understand the lives of older people: seeing changes over time, comparing indicators, and looking more deeply at the intergenerational differences within Ireland. This Hub provides indicators sourced from a range of CSO releases and surveys, and other public sector organisations.
The Older Persons Information Hub covers the following themes:
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Older Persons Information Hub
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (27 August 2025) published an update to the Older Persons Information Hub. This hub was first launched in September 2022 and provides a snapshot of the lives of older people in Ireland, highlighting social and economic indicators from a broad range of CSO publications and sources from across the government system.
Commenting on the Older Persons Information Hub, Sarah Crilly, Statistician in the Well-being and Social Cohesion Division of the CSO, said: “The population of Ireland is ageing, and older people are continuing to be an active and vibrant part of our community. The Older Persons Information Hub includes both social and economic indicators, which cover life satisfaction, population, health, education, employment, income and poverty, crime, life events, and more. This is a reflection of the full and varied lives led by older people in Ireland. While it is challenging to create a complete snapshot of the lives of older people in Ireland, especially given the range of objective and subjective measures, this Hub contains 46 different indicators, divided into 15 themes. Individuals will naturally assign different weights to the relative importance of each of these themes based on their own experiences. One of the aims of the Hub is to provide an accessible facility for users to examine these themes and indicators for themselves, to better understand the lives of older people.
Looking at the changes in the data over the last year, almost a third (32.3%) of people aged 65 years and over considered their overall life satisfaction to be high, compared with a quarter (24.7%) of those aged 25-49 years. Almost three in five (59.9%) people aged 75 years and over walked to get to and from places at least three days a week in 2024, compared with 85.2% of those aged 18-24 years.
The population of persons aged 85 years and over is projected to increase from an estimated 104,300 in 2027 to 389,400 in 2057. The old age dependency ratio, which expresses the population aged 65 years and over as a percentage of the population aged 15-64 years, is projected to increase from 25% in 2027 to 49.8% in 2057 (See Background Notes).
There was an increase of 26% in the proportion of people aged 65 years and over in employment, from 103,900 in Quarter 2 2021 to 131,400 in Quarter 2 2025. More than one in ten (11%) of those aged 75 years and over reported experience of discrimination in the past two years compared with almost three in ten (29%) people aged 25-34 years."
Additional Highlights from the Older Persons Information Hub
Health
Internet Use
Crime