The number of births in Ireland falls by almost 20% in 10 years

THE NUMBER OF births in Ireland has dropped by almost 20% over the last decade, according to data recently released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The number of births has fallen 18.8% since 2010 and 1.3% since 2017.

There were 61,022 live births in Ireland in 2018 with 31,306 males and 29,716 females born, according to the CSO.

The 2018 total was 14,151 fewer than 10 years earlier, when there were 75,173 live births.

Source: CSO

Meanwhile, the average age of mothers who gave birth in 2018 was 32.9 years.

Mothers under 30 years old accounted for 27.1% of births in 2018 compared to 2008, when mothers under 30 years old accounted for 39.3% of births.

Births to women over 40 have increased 42.4% since 2008.

More than a third (37.9%) of all births occurred outside of marriage or civil union in 2018. Thirty years earlier, in 1988, that figure was 11.9%.

There were also 956 births to mothers under the age of 20 in 2018, up from 2,402 in 2008, a decrease of 60.2%.

Deaths and deaths on the road

According to the CSO, there were 31,140 deaths in Ireland in 2018, an increase of 722 or 2.4% over 2017.

Of these:

• 9,258 or 29.7% of deaths attributed to malignant neoplasms.
• 9,084 or 29.2% of deaths attributed to diseases of the circulatory system.
• Deaths from diseases of the respiratory system in 2018 totaled 4,051 or 13% of all deaths.

Data released today also shows that nearly six in ten (57.9%) people killed on Irish roads in 2019 were car users (57.9%).

Of these, 19.3% were pedestrians and 11.4% motorcyclists. Data from 2018 shows that 78.4% of the people who died on Irish roads were men.

Travel

We may not be able to travel at this time, but in 2019 a total of 38.1 million passengers passed through Irish airports.

In 2019, the Dublin – Heathrow route carried the largest number of air passengers (1,856,475) and accounted for almost one-twentieth (4.9%) of all passenger movements that year.

The most popular country of origin-destination was the UK with 34.9% of passengers, followed by Spain with 12.3% and the US with 10.1% of all international trips.