A numbers game: fun with facts, figures and forecasts

WORLD STATISTICS DAY:YESTERDAY'S DATE of 20/10/2010 didn't go unnoticed by statisticians.

Designated as the first World Statistics Day, it was marked in Ireland by the Central Statistics Office with the publication of its Statistical Yearbook 2010.

The book is a compendium of every major verifiable fact about Ireland from the population to employment levels, imports and exports to the most popular boys’ and girls’ names.

It tells us that our gross national product (GNP), our output minus repatriated multinational profits, decreased by 10.7 per cent last year and by 3.5 per cent in 2008.

The number of employed people fell from a high of 2.1 million in 2008 to 1.9 million last year and the social welfare bill has almost doubled in the last 10 years from being 8.2 per cent of gross national income to 15.6 per cent of gross national income.

On a brighter note, the baby boom continues and the death rate is still falling – an indication that people are living longer. The natural increase in the population is 1 per cent per year.

At the current rate, a baby girl born in 2040 can expect to live to nearly 90 and a man to 86.

The occasion was also marked by the launch of an initiative to encourage schoolchildren to become statistically numerate: CensusAtSchool.

Sheelagh Clowry from Project Maths said without an understanding of statistics, people could be fooled by stories that sought to wilfully manipulate statistics.

The CSO also announced a new medal for statistics. The John Hooper medal, named after the State’s first director of statistics will honour those who support the improvement and appreciation of mathematics in schools.

AND THERE’S MORE

• 113,138 workers leave for work before 6.30am

• A boy born today has a life expectancy of 76.8 years, a girl 81.6

• Irish women produce an average of 2.07 children each. Though it is one of the highest fertility rates in the EU it is still below the 2.1 children threshold for the population to naturally replace itself if there was no emigration or immigration