Economic boom coincided with upsurge in birth rates

Ireland's  improved economic status has coincided with an upsurge in births, an increasing proportion of which are occurring outside of marriage, a new report on family trends has found.

The ESRI report, published yesterday, shows the number of women who gave birth to a first child increased by 29 per cent between 1994 and 2000. Almost 22,000 such first births occurred in the latter year, which beats the previous record achieved in 1980.

The report, Family Formation in Ireland, also shows the share of births occurring outside of marriage rose from 5 per cent in 1980 to 32 per cent in 2000.

There is, however, "a huge move into marriage" among those who have their first birth outside marriage, according to the report's co-author, Dr Tony Fahey. He said the "dominant family form" remained the two-parent unit despite the changes in recent years.

In considering formation trends, the report focuses on three major issues: a decline in fertility, the growth and pattern of lone parenthood, and changes in household and family size.

Among the most significant findings is a halt in the decline in fertility rates in the late 1990s after almost 20 years. The total fertility rate - the average number of births to each woman - fell from 3.87 in 1970 to 1.84 in 1995.

Even at this low point, however, the Irish rate was 30 per cent higher than the EU average and 60 per cent higher than the fertility rate in Spain. "Ireland continues to have more or less the highest fertility rate in Europe," the report says. "However, for the past decade, Irish fertility rates have been below those of the USA and New Zealand."

On lone parenthood, the report states "it now arises primarily because of non-marital childbearing and marital breakdown", with the widowed accounting for a smaller share of lone parents with dependent children.

About 12 per cent of children aged under 15 now live in single-parent families. "The possibility that parents may sometimes seek to conceal co-residence with a partner in order to claim lone-parent benefits deserves further investigation," the report says.

"This is so not only because it may indicate some degree of social welfare fraud but also because of what it implies about the disincentives to joint parenthood."

The report cites a lack of information on paths of entry into and exit from single parenthood. It is "unclear" what proportion of post-birth marriages or partnerships are with the biological father or "how stable they are compared to those who married before their children were born".

The report cites studies to support the claim that cohabitation is less stable than marriage. "It appears also that unions which commenced in non-marital cohabitation and subsequently entered marriage are less stable than those which commenced as marriages."

Another trend is the emergence of smaller families.

"The typical child being born today is either a first or a second child," said Dr Fahey. "There still is a certain incidence of third, fourth and even fifth children in Ireland - and in fact a somewhat larger incidence of those higher order births than in other countries - but it's much lower than was the case in earlier decades."

Regarding the recent increase in first births, Dr Fahey added a cause was difficult to pin down. However, "there is an interesting coincidence in timing between this upturn and the arrival of improved economic conditions".

Launching the report, the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Ahern, said Government policies had changed to take account of the different types of family formations.

He planned to open a new family support agency which would bring together the main programmes and pro-family services, including those aimed at preventing marital breakdown.

He also planned to asked the Government to consider undertaking a national longitudinal study of children, examining their progress and well-being at critical periods from birth to adulthood.

The report does not make any recommendations on policy matters. Dr Fahey said the experience internationally was that family formations "are not easily influenced by public policy".

Thus, "if the Government was to decide tomorrow that one of its main policy goals was to, say, increase the fertility rate or reduce the proportion of births that occur outside of marriage, there aren't any ready models from other countries that would show how that could be achieved," he said.