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Chapter 1: What are the current birth rate trends in Ireland?
The number of registered births in the state has fallen by almost 18% in the last decade, according to the Central Statistics Office. While the marriage rate has fallen to its lowest recorded level outside of the pandemic years, we're having fewer children and we're planning our families much later than before. So what's prompting that change? Are we witnessing...
A cultural shift away from motherhood as the default life path? Are we just too busy to have more babies? Or is the housing crisis to blame? Joining me now for more on this are Dr. Joan Cronin, lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at University College Cork, and Mary McCarthy, columnist with the Irish Independent. Good morning to you both. You're very welcome.
Joan, I might start with you. Good morning to you. Good morning, David. How are you? I'm very well, thanks. Now, obviously, there is an economic dimension to this. An ageing population needs more children born who can join the workforce and pay a growing pension bill.
Chapter 2: What cultural shifts are influencing family planning decisions?
And I'm very grateful to all those young people who'll be paying my pension. But is that the way we should be looking at this particular issue?
I suppose, David, I'm coming at it from the perspective of non-motherhood in particular, which is very closely linked to declining birth rates in Ireland. And I suppose what has changed over the past number of decades is that women in particular have more choices available to them, particularly since the 60s and 70s with the introduction of free education flocking to the workforce.
And I suppose there's less of an influence from a Catholic perspective. So in that regard, women are consciously choosing if and indeed when to have children. And increasing numbers of women are making the conscious decision not to have children. There's no doubt the financial crisis, the state of the world, wars... ethical and humanitarian concerns are contributing.
But another factor is the fact that women have the choice available to them today. That's something that wasn't available to them historically.
Yeah. Now you describe yourself as child free by choice. Is it easier now, more acceptable now to decide to make that decision? I mean, there wouldn't be the judgment that there would have been in years gone by, would there?
There is, David. There's no question about it. From my own perspective and from the perspective of the women that I interviewed for my research, there is what one would sometimes refer to as a stigma or indeed negative judgment. The decision is not accepted as valid or legitimate. It's consistently questioned. Even still? Even still, it's challenged, it's questioned by family.
There's an assumption that every woman should not only have a child, but should want to have a child. And it's not accepted as a legitimate or valid life choice.
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Chapter 3: How do economic factors affect decisions to have children?
So I suppose, look, we've all had questions and challenges put toward us. I know... Like you'd make a great mother. You're losing out. Who's going to look after you when you're older? They are some of the comments that I've come across, you know, in my journey. I suppose from a family perspective, my decision has always been accepted and it's never been challenged by my family or by my friends.
But then I've always known that I didn't want to have children. I suppose for me, non-motherhood is as natural as motherhood is to other women. But no doubt, David, there is still a stigmatisation around it.
OK, I want to bring in Mary McCarthy, columnist with the Irish Independent. Morning, Mary.
Good morning.
Now, we were just discussing there, there are financial aspects to all of this. It's obviously, there's no doubt there are costs to having children, but should finance dictate women's choices about having babies, do you think?
So there definitely is a financial element, right? I think it's wider than that. I think it's society, it's cultural. Joan is completely right. Every woman, every... The choice to be there, nobody is saying that we should take that choice away, but...
I think what we need to do, we need to have this conversation first of all, because governments should be trying to reverse this, because it is going to be huge. If we have fewer school kids than pensioners in 2050, that's a different world we're going into. But it's two kind of approaches we need, David.
So we need the pro-natal financial incentives because if you feel financially precarious, you're not going to have a kid. And that's just the truth of it, right? So housing, childcare, primary schools, massive. We've got to run them like we're assuming that parents are working, right? But also society. Like, I look at my kids. I've got three Gen Z, right? They're dating less.
All the research is showing that. So you have fewer kids then. You know, you need sex, then you get babies. It's just quite simple, you know? So I would say we need to kind of don't... Like, we need to actually don't build a roof before we build a foundation. So we should do all... We should try everything, David, is what I'm saying. Throw everything at it. Do all the housing...
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Chapter 4: What role do societal expectations play in motherhood choices?
They're always going to have them. I suppose one of the things we could look at, the Nordic countries are very advanced when it comes to parental policies and support for women and indeed men, fathers and mothers. So I suppose what they have introduced, Sweden in particular, have introduced this gender equal foundation. So they have 480 days paid shared parental leave and reduced working hours.
And that's legislated. Now, women in Sweden and those countries are still having less children, but quite a few are still having children. So they're supported financially. And I agree completely with Mary. There should be more subsidised childcare, you know, and incentives like that.
Mm-hmm. There is, as well, there is the whole issue of housing that I alluded to briefly earlier. And the Irish Daily Mail today actually is leading with comments by Bishop Dennis Nulty, who's head of ACCORD, the Catholic Marriage Advice Service, saying the cost of housing is now the biggest obstacle to couples getting married.
Now, the same applies even to people who don't want to get married but might like to start a family. You can't start a family if you don't have a secure home or it's much less attractive of a proposition.
It is much, much less attractive. But nonetheless, people are still having children and they are still getting married. It's still a very popular life choice. So I think like finance is just one of the many reasons, you know, linked to the housing crisis. But it is not the only reason that women are choosing to have less or indeed no children.
Mary, I mean, women are constantly being told they can have it all. They can have a family. They can have a career. They can have everything that goes with that. But they've been sold a pup.
I think we should just widen the conversation a bit, David. So, for example, my daughter, when we lived in Dublin, I can remember when she was picking her subjects for her genius search and the school had like a night where they brought in really successful students.
former peoples in their mid-30s and late 30s and they talked about their high-flying international careers because they took German, then they went off and they worked here, there and everywhere. And I remember thinking, yeah, this is great to get these role models, but I would actually have loved to have seen kind of
you know, a parent in there saying, well, you know, I, because like, let's say for myself, right, I took out nine years and I had my four kids and I looked at them. I went back to work. I'm back in the workforce. You can do that too. I'm not just saying to tell that to girls, tell that to boys.
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Chapter 5: How can financial incentives encourage higher birth rates?
And that's fine. He's 17. That's fine. But when you just look at the research and look at the data, there's fewer boys in their early 20s who are in a couple than there were, fewer men, I should say, than there were, like, 20 years ago. So it is about promoting...
couples and it's also about housing that's huge like i personally david i just went for it with my kids we didn't have a house um and i just said you know what i got this you see the thing is when you have a child that's when you get the bug that's when you're like oh my god this is amazing and for me it happened when i was 30 and that gave me time to have the number of kids i wanted and not everyone wants to have
numerous kids but if you do want that and you have the time that's texture there i think a lot of that's what happens to a lot of people and the research shows that that they would like to have more yeah if you know their circumstances were different yeah joan um mary is is calling on the government to encourage us to procreate more um what do you think devil era would have made of that
I suppose, look, going back to the 1937 Constitution written by Eamon de Valera, and I suppose there was huge influence from Archbishop Charles McCabe at the time. I suppose, look, I would be somewhat critical of the Constitution in the sense that it was written by men essentially to control women.
I mean, if we look at Article 41.2.2, the woman shall be obliged not to work outside the home and we shall support her from a state perspective. The children's allowance came in as a consequence of that.
They weren't obliged not to work outside the home. They wouldn't be forced to work outside the home.
Yeah, strongly encouraged, David. So I suppose we don't want to go back to that. What we want is to promote choice among women. That's what's really, really important here. And I suppose, as we said, historically, that choice has been taken away from us because, you know, between church and state, we have always been encouraged, you know, to create the next generation of Irish Catholic children.
And while the numbers of children have reduced and, you know, with good reason, because historically, Like large families constituted the norm in Ireland. You know, poverty was widespread. So things have changed and women have more options and choices available to them.
But like Mary said, like I suppose what's changing is the challenges facing women nowadays because they're having to balance work life and family life, you know, and this notion as well, of course, of intensive mothering. So in a way, David, excuse the expression, but you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, so to speak.
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