Census results show that Irish population is ageing

The number of young adults in the State has fallen by more than 10 per cent since 2006, new results of the April 2011 survey have shown.

The 19-24 age group was the only one to show a fall. with a decrease of 12 per cent since the last census, results released today by the Central Statistics Office showed.

Overall, the population of the State was getting older with the average age increasing by half a year to 36.1 years, the older and younger census data compiled by the CSO showed.

The population of pre-school children increased by almost a fifth (18 per cent) in the past five years, the survey showed. This is more than double the overall population growth of 8 per cent.

There were far more pre-school aged children living in flats and apartments, a 50 per cent increase since 2006. The number of pre-school aged children living in rented accommodation also increased and accounted for one third of all pre-school children.

Co Laois had the largest increase in this age group which was up by more than a third (37 per cent) followed by Co Cavan (30 per cent) Co Laois also saw the largest increase of primary school aged children (5-12 years), up by more than a quarter (29 per cent), followed by Fingal in Dublin (28 per cent).

Overall the number of primary school aged children increased by 12 per cent since 2006 to just over half a million. There was also a decrease in this age group in two cities Limerick (down 9 per cent) and Cork (down 8 per cent)

The census found an increasing trend towards adults renting their accommodation over the past decade. There was a 51 per cent increase in people aged 25-64 living in rented accommodation to just over 675,000. Two thirds of young adults (19-24) lived at home, an increase of 7 per cent on 2006.

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The population of older people aged over 65 increased by 14 per cent, the census found. There were 100 more people aged over 100 in 2011 compared with 2006, with 389 people in this age group. There was a population of over 20,000 older people living in nursing homes and almost 5,000 resident in hospitals.

The population of most counties increased in age but fell in Laois, Cavan and Longford. The rural population was on average two years older than the urban population, the report found.

The census was carried out on April 10th, 2011, with census staff collecting forms from just under two million dwellings. The previous census was held in 2006.