In 2022, there were 200,000 more people under 15 in Ireland than people over 65. By 2057, there will be a million more over-65s than under-15s. That’s according to CSO population growth projections, allowing for moderate net migration. The CSO made three projections based on high, moderate and low net migration. None of them show anything except a rapidly ageing society. In 1971, nearly half (47 per cent) of our population was under 25. It is a stunning change and has obvious economic ramifications for Irish society.
Last June, the Department of Finance warned that we are facing the largest rise in age-related expenditure in the EU. There are currently four workers for every pensioner. This will fall to just two by 2050 (even with high immigration).
We are not alone in becoming a much older society, and are far from the worst off. In recent weeks, outlets as diverse as the Financial Times, McKinsey Consulting, and the left-wing US magazine, Jacobin, have published analyses of the startling rate of demographic decline.
Two out of three people now live in countries where people are having babies at a rate too low to replace their population. Just 11 African countries and the small Pacific Island of Vanuatu are expected to be above the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman by 2100.
Planning rules for cabins and modular homes in back gardens set to be relaxed
‘Alarming’ incidence of ‘sex for rent’ advertisements, survey of international students finds
Verona Murphy is swinging her mallet in the Dáil like Wexford’s answer to Thor
Ten people died in a furnace of twisted metal in Creeslough. Now the owner wants to build another filling station
Demographic decline affects even the world’s most populous countries, such as India, with its 1.45 billion people. As Srinivas Goli, a professor of demography at the International Institute for Population Sciences, bluntly told the BBC, the problem is that “India is getting old before getting rich”. In some parts of India, the total fertility rate, at 1.4, is on par with Sweden. More than 40 per cent of people aged over 60 in India are in the poorest 20 per cent of the population. With the onset of a rapidly ageing society, many of the elderly will be low-income women.
Parts of Asia, notably China and some Latin American countries, are in particular trouble. In 1995, in eastern Asia, every retired person was supported by 10 workers. If trends continue, it will be one-to-one by 2058.
The demographic alarm bells are shrilling loudly across the globe but no one seems to know how to turn them off. No one is entirely sure what is driving the crisis, with everything from the rise in paid employment for women, to climate anxiety, to rising housing costs all playing a part. The Financial Times lists all the initiatives undertaken by governments such as those in Finland, Hungary, China and Japan to raise the birth rate. None have had more than modest success.
The role of religion in higher fertility is often dismissed or overlooked, but it is a significant factor supported by social science
The Iona Institute recently published a paper with the deliberately provocative title, Shall the Religious Inherit Ireland? (Although I am a patron of Iona, I did not contribute to this paper.) The title is a riff on Eric Kaufman’s 2010 book, Shall The Religious Inherit the Earth? Kaufman’s thesis was that, because fundamentalist religious people have more children, they would eventually exert more influence than committed secularists.
The Iona Institute’s claim is less sensational. It outlines the evidence that committed (as opposed to nominal) Christians in Ireland both want and have more children. Without ever forgetting religion’s flaws, a faith commitment also has pro-social benefits, including creating a community where there is significant support for having children. The paper does not address the sacrifices made by many religious people to have more children, including often forgoing all or part of a second income, living frugally, buying furniture second-hand and holidaying in Ireland with relatives or friends.
The role of religion in higher fertility is often dismissed or overlooked, but it is a significant factor supported by social science. The other explanations for lower fertility are more complex than previously thought. Higher levels of education in women correlated with lower fertility, but recent research from Oxford shows that fertility is now lower across all income brackets in England and Wales.
Higher incomes correlate with lower fertility, but what about India, growing older before growing richer?
[ Married priests and pregnant statues distract from church’s real issuesOpens in new window ]
Housing is one reason why people in Ireland are not having children, but new research from the UK Policy Exchange shows that while house prices in Ireland fell very sharply between 2009 and 2012, fertility rates kept falling. This continued even though Ireland’s economy began recovering in 2010, and unemployment levels had decreased by 2016.
Is it related to where people find meaning? Roger Eberstadt, the veteran US demographer, notes that religion celebrates both marriage and childrearing, but with its decline, “people increasingly prize autonomy, self-actualisation, and convenience. And children, for their many joys, are quintessentially inconvenient.”
It would be unwise to pin our hopes on a revival of religion saving our declining fertility. We could, however, encourage more thoughtful, respectful and supportive attitudes towards both those who have faith and the women and men who want to prioritise having more children. Those two categories will likely have a significant overlap. The alternative is to accept that the world is perceived as being so broken that people have lost confidence in having children, the ultimate act of faith in the future.
