In 2025, the estimated population aged 65 years and over was 861,000, a 37% increase on 2016, at 629,000.
High overall life satisfaction increased for those aged 65 years and over between 2024 and 2025, from 32.3% to 36.5%.
The median equivalised nominal disposable income, which accounts for household size and composition, was €28,889 for those aged 65 years and over, and €33,031 for those aged 18 to 34 years in 2025.
In 2025, the consistent poverty rate was 3.4% for those aged 65 years and over, compared with 2.0% a year earlier.
In 2025, the enforced deprivation rate was 9.8% for those aged 65 years and over, compared with 16% for those aged 18 to 34 years.
In 2024, 112,570 people aged 80 years and over held a full driving licence, more than double that of 2014, at 54,557.
More than one in ten (11%) of those aged 75 years and over, reported experiences of discrimination in the past two years. The percentage reported for people aged 25-34 years in 2024, was three times higher at 29%.
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. 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. 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 (23 April 2026) published an update to the Older Persons Information Hub. The Hub provides a snapshot into 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 Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development Goals 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. In 2025, more than a third (36.5%) of people aged 65 years and over considered their overall life satisfaction to be high, compared with more than one in five (22.1%) of those aged 25-49 years.
Almost four in ten (37.5%) respondents aged 65 to 74 years, and three in ten (31.4%) respondents aged 75 years and over, reported that they did muscle strengthening activities at least once a week in 2024. In 2024, 92.0% of respondents aged 75 years and over used prescription medicine, non-prescription medicine or vitamins in the two weeks prior to interview, compared with 59.9% of respondents aged 25 to 34 years. One in twenty respondents (4.9%) aged 65 years and over smoked tobacco products daily (excluding e-cigarettes), compared with 12.6% of those aged 25 to 34 years in 2024.
In 2025, 63% of those aged 75 years and over, used the internet in the three months prior to interview, compared with all respondents (100%) aged 30 to 44 years. Of those that used the internet in the previous 3 months, 86% of females aged 75 years and over sent or received emails, compared with 96% of males aged 75 years and over.
In 2025, the estimated population aged 65 years and over was 861,000, a 37% growth on 2016, at 629,000. The population of people aged 65 years and over is projected to double over the next thirty years, from an estimated 916,000 in 2027 to 1,879,000 in 2057. Therefore, 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 double in percentage points over the next thirty years, from 25.0% in 2027 to 49.8% in 2057 (See Background Notes).
There was an increase of 31% in the proportion of people aged 65 years and over in employment, from 103,300 in Quarter 4 (Q4) 2022 to 135,300 in Q4 2025. People aged 65 years and over in employment worked an average of 31.6 hours per week in Q4 2025, a rise on Q4 2023 at 30.2 hours per week."