Births to women aged 40 and over increased by 21.5 per cent in 10 years, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Statistics released by the CSO on Thursday showed that births to women aged 40 and over were up from 4,007 in 2012 to 5,868 in 2022. Meanwhile births to women aged under 20 decreased by 51.7 per cent in that period, down from 1,616 in 2012 to 781 in 2022.
There were 781 babies born to teenagers in 2022, while 0.7 per cent were to mothers aged 45 years and over. First-time mothers accounted for 21,943 or 40.3 per cent of all births in 2022.
The increase in older mothers in recent years has brought the average age of mothers giving birth to 33.2 years.
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Looking back 30 and 50 years ago, in 1992 and 1972 respectively, the average age was 29.7 years and 29.1 years. In 2022 the average age of mothers giving birth was 33.2 years. This was a slight decrease in average age of mothers at maternity, compared to 2021 when it was 33.3 years.
The annual birth rate has decreased to 10.5 per 1,000 of population compared to 15.6 per 1,000 population in 2012.
There were 54,483 babies born in 2022, down 10.1 per cent in just one year from 2021.
Waterford City had the highest birth rate in 2022 of 12.4 per 1,000 population while Galway City had the lowest at 8.4.
There were 35,804 deaths in Ireland in 2022, which is equivalent to a rate of 6.9 deaths per 1,000 total population, unchanged from 2021. Ten years previous the rate in 2012 stood at 6.4 per 1,000 of population.
In 2022 the most frequent age at death for males was 84 years (3.5 per cent), while for females it was 88 years (4.0 per cent).
At a very high level just over two-thirds of deaths were due to neoplasms or abnormal tissue masses (10,361), circulatory deaths (9,930) or respiratory deaths (3,874).
Of the 10,361 neoplasm deaths in 2022, 1,963 (19 per cent) were due to cancers of the bronchus and lung.
Of the 3,874 respiratory deaths in 2022, nearly 4 out of every 10 (39.9 per cent) of these were due to other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (1,545 deaths).
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