A Social Report for Ireland Volume II - the NESC Website

116Figure 7.23 Percentage of Births Classified by the Age of Mother, 2007%10090801,97211688648706050402,078119,43030203,09710018-2930-64p p p Married Unmarried Unmarried – CohabitingSource CSO, 2007hThere is a distinctive trend within the young adult cohort, with a majority of birthstaking place outside of marriage. Many of these births outside of marriage are tothose cohabiting with a partner. In the Nordic states, cohabitation has grown tosuch an extent that there are more first births within cohabiting unions than maritalunions (Kiernan, 2001). There is distinct variation in the incidence of cohabitationacross Europe, with Ireland traditionally placed near the bottom of the scale.However, in relation to extra-marital births, an indicator which is intimately linkedto cohabitation rates, the proportion in Ireland rose from 8 per cent in 1985 to 32per cent in 2006 (Census, 2006).Household CompositionThe third indicator on the family structure component is household composition,which has been changing in Ireland over time. In 2006, the most common householdtype was a husband and wife with children (of any age); followed by one personhouseholds, husband and wife without children, lone parents and then cohabitingcouples, see Figure 7.24. Although there has been an increase in the absolutenumber of husband and wife households, there has been a relative decrease inthe number of households of a husband and wife with children. Correspondingly,there has been an increase in the proportion of cohabiting households, both withand without children. In the 2006 Census, cohabiting couples with or withoutchildren accounted for 11.6 per cent of all family units, which was an increase of8.4 percentage points on the 2002 Census; a majority of these households werewithout children (63.8 per cent).