Average age of first-time mothers rises to almost 32 years - CSO

The average age that Irish women are giving birth at for the first time rose again last year, to almost 32 years of age, new statistics show.

In a release of figures on “vital statistics” for last year, the Central Statistics Office said that 58,443 births were registered in 2021, an increase of 2,484 babies or 4 per cent on the previous year.

Despite that increase, the birth rate has dropped by more than a fifth, some 21.7 per cent, in the past decade, from 16.3 births per 1,000 people in 2011 to 11.7 per 1,000 of the population in 2021.

The statistics show women having babies later. The average age of first-time mothers rose by 0.2 years to 31.6 years last year. The average age of mothers for all births registered in 2021 was 33.3 years compared with 33.1 in 2020 and 31.8 years a decade earlier, in 2011.

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There were 16 babies born to girls under the age of 16 last year, while 256 women aged 45 years and older gave birth during the year. Almost 700 teenagers had babies last year.

More than two thirds of babies, or 41.4 per cent, were born outside marriage or civil partnerships and of these 26.3 per cent were born to cohabiting parents.

Some 38.8 per cent of births were to first-time mothers in 2021.

Births to Irish mothers accounted for more than three quarters of births last year. Just over 10 per cent of births were to mothers from other EU states and 2 per cent were to British mothers.

Nationalities other than Irish, British or EU accounted for almost 10 per cent of births.

Leitrim had the lowest number of births with 405 births compared with Dublin, the county with the highest number of births which had 6,463 or 11 per cent of all registered births.

Marriage figures reflect the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

There were 17,217 marriages registered last year, compared with 9,523 in 2020, representing a doubling of the marriage rate to 3.4 marriages for every 1,000 people from 1.5 the previous year.

Some 500 same-sex marriages were registered in 2021.

The natural increase in the population - the number of births minus deaths - last year was 25,388, which was 4.9 per cent higher than the previous year’s figure.

The fertility rate stands below the level at which the population would replace itself in the long run, excluding the impact of migration into the country.

There were 33,055 deaths registered in 2021, up 4 per cent on 2020. This represents a death rate of 6.6 deaths for every 1,000 of the population - 14 per cent higher than a decade earlier.

More than four-fifths of the deaths, or 82.7 per cent, were people aged 65 and over. Two in three deaths were from cancers, diseases of the circulatory system or disease of the respiratory system. Accidents, suicides and “external causes” accounted for 4 per cent of deaths.

There were 399 suicides in 2021, of which 302 were men.

Covid-19 was responsible for 3,011 deaths in 2021 and of these 2,208 were aged 75 and over.

The CSO said that a death due to the Covid-19 vaccine causing adverse effects in therapeutic use was recorded for the first time in 2021. The person was in the 75-84 age group.

There were 180 infant deaths - defined as an infant under the age of one - last year, giving an infant mortality rate of 3.1 deaths per 1,000 live births - a decrease from 3.5 a decade earlier.

There were 140 neonatal deaths - defined as an infant under the age of four weeks - registered in 2021, giving a neonatal morality rate of 2.4 deaths for every 1,000 live births.