Married couples with one child are nearly 30 per cent more likely to separate than those with a bigger family or no children at all, according to a new study published by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) today.
The report also shows the introduction of divorce in 1997 was accompanied by the slowing down and eventual levelling off of the growth in marital breakdown.
The study, by Pete Lunn, Tony Fahey and Carmel Hannan, examined the Census data from 2006, as well as the tables in the various Census returns since 1986 for comparative purposes. The examination of the 2006 Census data looked at all the details registered for those between the ages of 15 and 59, a total population of 2.7 million people. The study also includes some international comparisons with other EU states.
It found that the Irish are less likely to marry or form cohabiting partnerships than most other European nationalities and our rate of marriage breakdown is one of the lowest in Europe. It also finds the rate of cohabitation has increased sharply over the past 20 years and twice as many people aged 25 cohabit as are married.
The study also found significant differences between Irish people and immigrants, who made up 10 per cent of the population in 2006, with regard to marriage, cohabitation, lone parenthood and marital breakdown.
Immigrants from Eastern Europe, for example, are more likely to marry young and more likely to divorce or separate than Irish people. It also found that Muslims, while also likely to be married younger, were less likely to experience marriage breakdown and had larger families than Irish people.
The study points out that the middle decades of the last century were something of a “golden age” for marriage across Europe, with more people marrying, and at a young age, than at any other time in the modern age. This tapered off with the growth in marriage breakdown and the tendency for young people to stay single for longer.
However, this varied widely across Europe, with Ireland second only to Sweden for the number of women who never married in the 25-29 age group, both of them registering over 70 per cent. In Sweden, though, there is a higher rate of cohabitation.
Of those in their early 30s, some 50 per cent were unmarried and cohabitation emerged as an option from the age of about 25 onwards, with 20 per cent of 28-year-olds cohabiting in 2006. A third of the 122,000 cohabiting couples had no children, but this proportion declined as the couples got older, so that 60 per cent of cohabiting women between the age of 37 and 44 who were never married had at least one child.
The study also shows the emergence of same-sex couple households, representing 0.15 per cent of the cohort examined, and also shows these to be concentrated among people with third level education and in the Dublin area.
It found a strong correlation between social class and marriage breakdown, with it more likely to occur among the semi-skilled and unskilled.
In 2005 Ireland and Italy shared the bottom position of 31 European countries for the number of divorced people per 1,000 population, with 0.8 per cent. The highest was Lithuania, with 3.3 per 1,000, and the UK was 2.6. However, when separation is added in to the figure is likely to double. There were just under 200,000 people whose marriages had broken down in Ireland in 2006, but 36,000 of these were non-nationals.
When the rate of marriage breakdown was examined by comparing previous Census returns, the biggest increase was between 1986 and 1996, the decade before divorce was introduced, with a rate of increase of 65.2 per cent. This increase slowed to 24 per cent over the next six years, and slowed again to only 3.3 per cent between 2002 and 2006, even though this coincided with an increase in the number of immigrants.
The survey said one in four of married women who have never married and who have only lower second level qualifications are lone mothers by their mid-20s. Only 3 per cent of graduates have children at the same age.
It also showed that women were having children later, most commonly starting their families after the age of 29.
The study stresses that lone parent families are far from a homogenous group. The majority of children born outside marriage are born into relationships, it finds. While one in three births are outside marriage, mothers who are not in a relationship account for a minority of them, and much of the increase in births outside marriage are accounted for by births within cohabiting relationships.
Lone parents include those who are separated, divorced or widowed, men as well as women. More than a third of lone parents had experienced a broken marriage, while eight per cent were widowed, leaving 57 per cent never married.
The study found there were just under 114,000 lone parents in 2006, of whom almost 10,200, or nine per cent, were male. However, very few lone fathers were under 30, and they were much more likely to become a lone parent as a result of marriage breakdown. One in eight children from a broken marriage was likely to be cared for by a father.
Those with lower educational attainment started their families younger, whether partnered or not, the study showed. The chances of having a child by the age of 30 was more than five times higher for a woman with a primary or lower secondary education than for a graduate. The chances of having four or more children was also much higher for women with lower educational attainment.
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said the report would help in the formulation of Government policy. “This project is unique as it is the first time researchers have been granted access to the full 2006 CSO Census file and so allows a more in-depth study of family life,” Ms Hanafin said. “The report will be a valuable resource for policy makers and those interested in how families are developing and changing in Ireland.”