Irish birthrate slumps 22% in a decade

i have no real knowledge on this, but my thoughts are....birth rates seem to drop as standard of living improve. think germany and japan were the 1st 2 to report this, cos kids were viewed not as kids but as bad investments (what a warped view).

The trinity library would be full of new arrivals sleeping there if some people had their way.

” what ? A a big room just full of books ? “ 😕😟😟

Contraception is widely avaidable young people are choosing to have 1 or 2 children or none at all. It's not just Ireland it's the same in the UK, America. And of course houses are much more expensive than the 80s,90s, previous generations could marry at the age of 19. Ordinary working people bought a house or maybe got a council house.

We are going in the direction of Japan., property is expensive, even married couples may have one child or none. I can see no sign of any politican trying to bring Ireland back to the 90s. Yes if you look at it from a global outlook the planet right now cannot support the no of people being born

Look up global warming drought rising tempetures India water shortage food is getting more expensive we have maybe 8 years left to tackle global warming we are facing inflation and a recession plus war in Ukraine some places in some country's are now unliveable due to lack of water high temps

Look up California drought they are bringing in restrictions to reduce water use on lawns Gardens

For anyone to have children now either you are rich or have no idea what's going on in the world

the Irish economy boomed because there's plenty of people who came here to work in shops hotels etc we have hardly started here in terms of switching over to green energy sources or maybe millenials might wait and just inherit the family home

it's gen z that are really in trouble

Maybe you're coming at this from an ideological position and don't want to believe that the birth rate is falling? And doesn't Japan has very different policies on immigration? All these fact are readily available in seconds on the web.

The birth date in NOT "the numbers of children born". As a population rises, its very possible more children can be born now than in 1994.

If you care to find out, "birth rate" means: the number of live births per 1,000 people in a population over a specific period of time (typically a year).

So if you care to look, Ireland's population has started to rise more rapidly from the Celtic Tiger onwards.

The "birth rate" continues to fall fall fall since the 70s. What this all means is another question. My main concern is where everyone is going to live, what impact will this have on infrastructure (transport water sewage pollution etc). We don't seem to great at planning for these changes, especially as many people refuse to believe its happening!

Japan is has "issues" with immigrants coming into their country, and how it will affect Japanese cultures etc. So they restrict it. Some shades as racism there, similar to the Chinese calling foreigners "barbarians".

I have little problem with immigration if it meets an economic need, moving people purely for the sake of it is not what I advocate and represents a failure of society to meet peoples needs where they actually live and really want to be. Solve the problems of social inequality at its source and most migration simply fades away. Millions of Irish across the globe are testament to the occassional need to migrate for better opportunities when your own government (whether colonial or domestic) **** things up so badly that you have to move or starve.

However in terms of impacts - it takes about 10x the number of African/Asians to offset the carbon footprint of a single Irish citizen - so the real problem isn't out there, it is at home where we suck the resources of the world to feed our wasteful lifestyles.

Again I mearly point out that all your hand ringing is missing the point - Irish fertility is falling because we are better educated. if we want the same to happen in developing countries then we need to encourage education and self reliance there. It has happened in Bangladesh which now has fertility rates slightly higher than our own all down to education and free availability of contraception. If we want the immigrants to stop coming then its up to us to stop sucking their countries dry and that includes their most skilled workers who we use to prop up our high tech industries and health services. You cannot slam the gates shut to the tidal wave of immigration without addressing the root causes of why it is happening.

You do know that 1.7-2.0 is far from been a replacement rate, for that you need around 2.2 at least. Birth rates do not factor in the fact that there is still an infant mortality rate to consider and then there are factors like high rates of suicide. Ireland has fallen below a replacement rate and is in the same boat as much of Europe in terms of needing immigrant labour to plug the gap and keep the economy tricking over. The EU model suited Ireland well because it had no need to actually offer citizenship to mkost of the European workers, not so with world immigration. Restrict immigration and you instantly hit Japans Stagflation scenario. People may hate immigration but it is just about the only response open to the current government wedded to the current economic model.

I am not fixated on allowing immigration - but you seem to be. My interest is in understanding the actual reality of what is happening rather than accepting piecemeal a racist interpretation of what is happening. My point here has been that your arguments are purely motivated by a racist ideology.

I do not believe that the actual desired fertility rate will meet replacement rate into the future - since it ignores that fact that many people are actively choosing to have no children for multiple reasons.

Immigration may not be a desirable solution - but if you accept that then you need to accept that stagflation is our future. What is really needed is a model of society not predicated on a growing pop[ulation. We are entering that stage now and what we see going on in the global economy is a symptom of that reality.

From personal experience my far from untypical children, both educated to degree level and both below 30, are very unlikely to have a single child between them. As I said they are more typical of their generation than not so I see fertility rates falling even more dramatically over the next 20years as this generation come to dominate the demographics.

I’m late 30s, my wife is early 30s. We have two, with a third on the way. My brother is mid-thirties, wife is early thirties, they already have three. My sister is early thirties, has two and plans to have more. My two youngest sisters are still in their twenties and single. They hope to marry and have kids. All my friends from university are married with multiple children. Everybody I’ve spoken about is highly educated and have decent careers.

Your adult children aren’t representative of anybody except themselves and have zero impact on macro trends. Incidentally, having children is the best thing that ever happened to me. It beats career advancement, travel, and all of the other stuff I’ve done in my life by multiples. I highly recommend it! Shame you’ll miss out on the grandkids.

As I said before, given their fixation on neo-liberal economics they really have no other choice than to bolster their growth with migrants. It really isn't anything sinister - its a consequence of capitalism and free markets.

The Irish state has been violently opposed to immigration for all of its existence until this position was no longer sustainable economically.

Australia is the poster boy for controlled immigration but seems to have all the same problems we have high property prices, high cost of lving, high child care costs so perhaps migration is not the cause of all our problems. I would consider anyone born in ireland even to an immigrant to be 100% irish but it seems extremes on the left and right want to emphasise that these kids are different to whose parents are both irish born

No - availability of workers is the only explanation necessary in a competitive tight labour market of high tech industries. No wet dream replacement conspiracy needed to explain basic labour market dynamics.

High tech industry across the EU are booming - and workers are staying at home where they want to be.