22.2% of babies are born to single women

BETWEEN a fifth and a quarter of all births in Ireland take place outside marriage, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office.

The proportion of children born to unmarried women has more than doubled in 10 years, from just 9.6 per cent of births in 1986 to 22.2 per cent in 1996. Last year 10,788 births took place outside marriage compared to 9,904 in 1995, and just 5,030 in 1984.

The new figures also show a drop in the marriage rate from 5.3 per 1,000 people in 1985 to 4.4 last year. The overall birth rate, however, has risen marginally, from 13.4 per 1,000 in 1995 to 13.5 last year.

Dr Gabriel Kiely, head of the Department of Social Policy at University College Dublin, said the figures follow trends in marriage and birth rates throughout Europe. One of the main factors contributing to the rise in births outside marriage is an increase in cohabiting couples, he said.

"Although we don't have any reliable data on the extent of cohabitation, there would appear to have been a rise in Ireland over the past number of years."

However, many children born outside marriage will not remain in that situation, he said. "Research in Europe shows that cohabitation is something which precedes marriage and is not instead of marriage."

He added that the widespread perception that most births outside marriage were to teenage mothers was incorrect. "Unmarried mothers are mainly in the early to mid20s age bracket."

Senator Mary Henry, who is president of Cherish, the support group for single parents, also said that people "grossly exaggerate" the number of teenage mothers.

She suggested that more women were choosing to reject marriage because "the stigma of having a child outside of wedlock has been greatly reduced. Also, if the mother is young, a lot of parents would now be cautious about rushing into marriage."

She rejected the view that the increase in births outside marriage is putting a strain on the State. "We have found that within three years of having their babies, an awful lot of single mothers would be in employment, or married, or in a stable relationship."

She would welcome detailed research on why couples choose cohabitation, she added.