Irish people are more educated, more mobile but are also suffering more health problems according to the latest batch of census statistics released today by the Central Statistics Office.
Today's figures which focus on socio-economic aspects of the cenus show that employment grew by over 25 per cent (+334,000) between 1996 and 2002 while the number of persons unemployed, including those looking for their first regular job, fell by 67,000.
But the most noteworthy trend in the labour force statistics is the increase in female participation which has risen from 28.2 per cent in 1971 to 47 per cent in 2002.
The level of educational attainment has also increased with more teenagers opting to complete at secondary education. In 1981, nearly half of the population aged 15 years and over had left the educational system before reaching the age of 16. By 2002, the corresponding figure had fallen to 24.4 per cent. One in five have now third level qualifications.
Just over 55 per cent of all workers drove to work in 2002, up from 46 per cent six years previously. Taken in combination with workers who travelled to work as car passengers or who drove vans or lorries to work, more than two out of three workers were private vehicle users in 2002.
Workers travelled on average 9.8 miles from their homes to their workplaces in 2002, up from 6.7 miles six years earlier. Even though urban workers travelled shorter distances (7.8 miles) to their workplaces than workers living in rural areas (13.3 miles), traffic congestion meant that they spent longer periods commuting (28 minutes compared with 26 minutes for rural workers).
Over half of primary schoolchildren driven to school compared to less than five twenty years ago.
Almost 324,000 persons, representing 8.3 per cent of the total population, had a long lasting health problem or disability based on the responses to two new questions introduced in the 2002 Census. The incidence of disability was higher among females than males (8.7 per cent compared with 7.8 per cent ) and nearly two-thirds of those with a disability were aged 50 years or over.
Car ownership was higher in rural areas (86.2 per cent) than in urban areas (73.3 per cent). The trend in both areas has been sharply upwards since 1991 when the relevant percentages were 74.6 per cent and 59.5 per cent, respectively. Over a million households had at least one car each in 2002 - an increase of 330,000 compared with 1991. Despite the growth in the overall numbers of households in the same period, those without a car declined by 70,000 or 20 per cent.