Ireland's farm women are turning their backs on the land, the Teagasc rural development conference was told.
Mr Jim Frawley, of the Teagasc rural economy research centre said he estimated that during the 1990s a total of 24,000 spouses had ceased their input into farming, a drop of 32 per cent.
He said the majority of the women had made "lifestyle" decisions to move away from the land and were normally married into large dairy farms.
"They don't want to be trapped in the house all day and they normally have skills which they can use in the rest of the workforce," he said.
He did not think this would affect mothers encouraging their children to remain on the land as they had "ceased doing that a long time ago".
He said it appeared the Tarry Flynn, the bachelor farmer with a small holding, would be unlikely to be married to such a woman, who tended to be married into the larger holdings.
Mr Frawley said this movement was also matched by a significant decline in the contribution of other family members to the running of farms.
"It is clear from these trends that farming is becoming less family-orientated and more a one-person operation on the majority of Irish farms," he said.
He said that almost 30 per cent of farmers with off-farm employment were involved in the construction industry and a further 28 per cent in farm-related employment.
These activities included machinery contracting and the provision of farm relief services, such as milking dairy herds.
In contrast, he added, almost 40 per cent of spouses with off-farm jobs were involved in professional occupations. Over a quarter were involved in clerical work and over 10 per cent in service industries.
The increased uptake of off-farm employment, either by the farmer or the spouse, had alleviated pressure in up to 40,000 farm households during the past decade.