One in four Gen Z women in Ireland ‘will never have children’
Irish women are having significantly fewer children than their mothers and grandmothers and Gen Z women are on course for an historically high level of childlessness according to a new report.
“Choice or Circumstance? Rising Childlessness in Ireland” predicts that one in four Gen Z women in Ireland will never have any children. The study was commissioned by Iona Institute, a Christian advocacy and research body.
It tracks a consistent trajectory of increasing childlessness as each passing generation of Irish women has entered their 30s and warns that there is no sign of a turnaround.
The research examines trends in childlessness by generation starting with women born after 1955, the generation referred to as “baby boomers”.
According to the research, women aren’t just delaying childbearing and catching up by their mid-40s. A larger proportion are ending up childless.
A spokesperson for the Iona Institute, Breda O’Brien, said Irish society needs to debate why this is happening. “Is it purely a result of the high cost of living, or it is also because young people are today often encouraged to put off starting a family until they are well into their 30s, by which time it might be too late?”
The anxiety of involuntary childlessness is set to emerge steadily through the 2030s, as increasing numbers of Gen Z women move through their 30s according to the study. Their fertility challenges comes amid a boom in fertility treatments and while this may help some, it won’t help all, the report stresses.
The study shows that 30.9 per cent of the Boomer generation from 1955 were childless at age 30 while just 13.5 per cent were still childless at age 45. Among Millennials, the rate of childlessness at age 30 is between 53.6 per cent and 63.6 per cent, much higher than Boomers. For Gen Z women, the late 1990s cohort, 86.7 per cent of women were childless at age 25. The figure was as low as 58.5 per cent among the earliest Boomer generation.
The study notes that Gen Z are beginning to have children at a considerably older starting point than any previous generation, signalling higher eventual childlessness, though forecasting childlessness for cohorts that have not yet completed their reproductive lifecycles carries many caveats.
The report asks if the trend towards childlessness is a choice or is it forced on women by circumstance, such as the housing crisis and the cost of living.
Noting that an Amarach Research poll commissioned by the Iona Institute in 2022 showed that 85 per cent of people want to have at least two children and only 2 per cent expressed a wish for no children, the report suggests that the rise in the number of people availing of infertility treatments suggests that “a lot of childlessness is unplanned”.
While the causes of rising childlessness are many, later marriage or no marriage at all is “among the most significant structural drivers, even though many births are now outside marriage”, according to the report.
It also highlights that Ireland is experiencing a broader Western pattern of educational and career prioritisation delaying family formation, alongside rising housing costs which make family life more economically precarious.
The Iona Institute highlights that a decline in religious affiliation has removed a cultural driver that historically encouraged earlier marriage and childbearing.
According to CSO data, the average man in Ireland is now almost 38 getting married and the average woman is almost 36, though many children are now born outside marriage.
The new study emphasises that the longer a person delays having children, the more likely it is they will never have any.
Breda O’Brien, a teacher and mother, warned that a situation in which people are having fewer children than they planned for, while a growing number will end up childless, is “a personal tragedy”.
She also warned that this trend has “very significant social and economic consequences because of the effects of an ageing population and growing loneliness”.
High childlessness will lead to a further fall in the overall fertility rate the report notes and with an ageing population, it will result in a worsening dependency ratio.
This has implications for public finances. “The fiscal pressures that follow are not abstract concerns. They will manifest in real policy trade-offs within the working lifetimes of the very generation whose childlessness this report documents,” the report states.
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