One in eight (12.7%) of the respondents contacted to take part had emigrated.
Of those in Cohort '98 still living in the parental home, more than six in ten (62.4%) were doing so for mostly financial reasons.
Some 7.5% of respondents at age 25 years were living outside both the parental home and outside the region they had lived in when they were aged nine years.
Just over one-third (34.2%) of Cohort '98 said they had difficulties making ends meet.
A majority (58.5%) of respondents were in a romantic relationship.
Nearly one-third (31.5%) of women in this group had been diagnosed with either depression or anxiety at some point in their lives.
A majority (51.2%) of men in the group with a degree level education engaged in drinking alcohol to a level that the World Health Organisation (WHO) categorise as hazardous or dangerous.
Almost one in five (19.9%) respondents said they had no interest in politics.
This release is the first of a series of releases from GUI Cohort '98 at age 25 by the CSO. This Main Results release includes information by sex and geographic area, on income and cost of living, household structure, main activity, family, friends, relationships and personal life, health and well-being, and interactions with society. Further releases will provide greater detail on themes such as:
A number of CSO Frontier Series releases are also planned which will take a more exploratory analytical approach to the data.
This was the fifth wave of data collection for what was the original child cohort in GUI, referred to now as Cohort '98. This group was born in 1998 and were first interviewed when they were nine years old in 2007/'08. This most recent wave of data collection was carried out from April 2023 to April 2024 when this cohort were 25 years old. This was the first time data collection and processing for GUI was carried out entirely by the CSO, following the transfer of responsibilities for this significant national longitudinal survey from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). The respondents will next be invited to take part in Cohort '98 Wave 6 when they will be 30 years old. Data from Cohort '98 at age 25 presents often unique insights into the lives of adults in Ireland and can provide important information into differences in life course trajectories by key socio-demographic indicators such as gender, income, education, and household structure.
The response rate was 49.5% representing an achieved sample size of 3,380 individuals. Respondents received a letter inviting them to complete the survey online. This letter contained a personal secure code to access their questionnaire. The majority (87.1%) of respondents who undertook the survey completed via online mode. Respondents who did not self-complete the online survey were visited by an interviewer and offered an in-person interview.
Of the 7,870 approached for interview in Wave 5, 1,001 individuals said they were not living in Ireland, representing over one out of every eight people who were eligible to be interviewed (unweighted figures). These individuals were invited to complete a very short emigration survey. Exactly 500 individuals completed this survey. Of those who responded, more than five in six (84.7%) said they planned to live abroad for 12 months or more. Over one-third (35.6%) had emigrated to the United Kingdom. Over four in ten (43.3%) had left Ireland for employment opportunities abroad. Further information on the emigration survey is provided in the Annex.
Results from this survey reflect the specific sample: 25-year-olds living in Ireland in 2023/'24 who were also living in Ireland when they were nine years of age in 2007/'08. The results are therefore not comparable with those which reflect the full population of 25-year-olds living in Ireland in 2023, for example results captured by the census of population. Those results would include individuals who moved to Ireland in the years after 2008 and were therefore not eligible to be sampled for GUI.
All questions in GUI are voluntary; respondents could choose when they wanted to finish answering the survey at any time during the questionnaire. Where reported proportions in this release do not sum to 100%, this is due to item non-response.
In this release, data for 3,377 out of the 3,380 respondents to the survey, or 99.9% of survey returns, were successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources. As well as the strict legal protections set out in the Statistics Act, 1993, and other existing regulations, the CSO is committed to protecting individual privacy and all identifiable information from each of the data sources used in our analysis. Names, date of birth and addresses, are removed before use and only anonymised statistical aggregates are produced. For further information on the data sources, matching procedures, and definitions in this release, see the Background Notes.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (27 January 2025) published Growing Up in Ireland Cohort '98 at age 25. This is the first time the CSO has issued results from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey.
GUI is a national, longitudinal study of children and young people in Ireland and is a collaborative programme of work between the CSO and the Department for Children, Equality, Disability, Inclusion, and Youth (DCEDIY). This release presents the main results describing the lives of 25-year-olds in GUI, from the central survey themes of physical health, well-being and key relationships, education, civic participation, and economic participation. See the Editor’s Note below for more background information on GUI.
This was the first time data collection and processing for GUI was carried out entirely by the CSO, following the transfer of responsibilities for this significant, national, longitudinal survey from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). This was also the first instance of extensively combining GUI survey data collection with administrative data, to reduce respondent burden and increase the analytical value of the data. Further information on the methodology underpinning this release can be found in the Background Notes.
Commenting on today’s release, Daniel Watts, Statistician in the Growing Up in Ireland Division at the CSO, said:
“Today’s results from the CSO GUI Cohort '98 at age 25 are particularly exciting as it was the first Growing Up in Ireland survey that focused exclusively on the individual’s participation, with no questions addressed to their wider family. This allowed us to hear the voice of adults living in Ireland clearly which is reflected in the results.
This is the first in a series of four releases from the GUI Cohort '98 at age 25. Throughout the rest of the year, the CSO will publish three further releases exploring topics such as cost of living, housing, and well-being. (See Editor’s Note below for more information on the planned publication schedule).
Work and Education
As outlined in our chapter on Work and Education, we find there has been little difficulty in transitioning into the workforce for this group of adults. More than 80% stated they were in employment at the time of interview while 6.3% said they were unemployed. As this was a few years after most would have completed higher education, we can see that almost three in five (59.5%) of our cohort had a degree or equivalent education.
Income and Cost of Living
In our chapter on Income and Cost of Living, administrative data indicated that the majority (85.5%) of our group were in regular employment, earning a median weekly salary of €558. However, differences in earnings between those with and without a degree were noticeable. Respondents with a degree earned €613 a week compared with €485 a week for those without a degree.
There was also evidence of significant income inequality already emerging within this group. While nearly three-quarters (73.2%) reported they saved regularly, 34.2% reported at least some difficulty making ends meet.
Mobility and Personal Life
Of respondents still living in the parental home, more than six in ten (62.4%) were doing so for mostly financial reasons. Some 3.8% of respondents said they owned their own home. However, four-fifths (80.5%) expected to buy a home in the future. Even those who had moved out of their parents’ home showed a low level of mobility, tending to stay in their local region (71.7%).
In the chapter on Personal Life, nearly three in five (58.5%) of our cohort reported being in a romantic relationship of some kind, 4.1% were in or about to enter a legally formalised relationship, while just over 5% had children. More than one in ten stated they spent some time taking care of a family member (10.7%) other than childcare while just over one in twenty (5.5%) said they had no close friends.
Health and Well-Being
In our chapter on Health and Well-Being, nearly nine out of ten (89.1%) respondents reported themselves as having good to excellent general health. There was, however, a decline in mental health since this group were aged 20 years. Levels of self-reported depression, anxiety, stress, and low self-esteem had increased since 2018. More than three in ten women (31.5%) said they had been diagnosed with depression or anxiety at some point in their lives. Women without a higher education self-reported more negative outcomes.
When it comes to alcohol, almost four in ten (39%) engaged in what the World Health Organisation (WHO) considers to be hazardous drinking with notably higher figures among men, especially men with higher education. A majority (51.3%) stated they did not smoke nor vape while more than one in five in our group (21.4%) said they had tried cocaine at least once in the past year.
Society and the Wider World
In our chapter on Society and the Wider World, almost the entire group of respondents (97.7%) were concerned with the housing situation in Ireland while more than four in five (85.1%) were concerned about climate change. Meanwhile, nearly one in five (19.9%) expressed they had zero interest in politics and the majority (51.1%) had not engaged in any significant political activity in the previous year.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65.6%) had also reported experiences of discrimination at least a few times a year but on the other hand, a majority (56.4%) stated they were optimistic about the future. Most of the people in Cohort '98 stated they were satisfied with their lives”.
Appreciation
The CSO would like to thank the many contributors to GUI Cohort '98. We would like to particularly thank the following people:
For more commentary on the findings of the survey please see the accompanying Press Release. An FAQ for Cohort '98 is also available.