The Republic is becoming a middle-aged State and this trend will accelerate dramatically over the next decade, according to Dr Danny McCoy of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
Dr McCoy, editor of the ESRI's Quarterly Economic Commentary, said that in 1996 the largest single population group was aged between 10 and 19.
However, by 2011 the largest single group will be aged between 30 and 39.
He was speaking at a conference on tertiary education in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology yesterday.
Ireland will not "naturally" produce the number of skilled workers required to ensure significant growth in the economy as a result, Dr McCoy observed.
"Vigorous" life-long learning initiatives will have to be expanded and improved to meet this challenge, and many of these were already in place in institutes of technology, he noted.
"Our education strategy needs to reflect the change in our population patterns, as only by growing our labour supply can Ireland remain competitive and generate increases in living standards," he said.
Institutes of technology had to be concerned at the "alarmingly low" numbers of school children taking science, physics and mathematics as subjects, Mr Éamonn Kinsella, science and technology consultant, told the conference.