The number of married people in the Republic increased by nearly 10
per cent in just five years between 2006 and 2011, the latest figures
from the CSO show.The figures show the number of families living in the State on census night in April 2011 increased by 12 per cent when compared with five years earlier.
The statistics, which focus on living arrangements in the Republic, show the number of married people last year was 1,708,604 compared with 1,565,016 five years earlier.
The percentage of the population aged over 15 who were single fell from 43.1 per cent in 2006 to 41.7 per cent or 1,505,035 people in 2011.
The average number of children in each family was 1.5 in rural areas and 1.3 in cities.
Cohabiting couples with children had an average of 1.74 children, while the figure for married couples was 2.09 children.
The CSO reports that 32 was the age at which married women outnumbered their single counterparts, while for men it was two years higher at 34.
Over the 15 years since 1996, the proportion of the population aged 15 years and over who were divorced grew from 0.4 per cent or just 9,787 people to 2.4 per cent or 87,770 last year - an increase of almost 800 per cent over the period.
The growth in remarriage mirrors the rise in divorce and there was an increase of nearly 550 per cent in those re-married following divorce or annulment over the same period, from 6,641 people in 1996 to 42,960 in 2011.
Overall men are much more likely to remarry with 39 per cent of divorced men being remarried, compared with only 28 per cent of women.
Divorced men are more likely to be in childless households. Some 78 per cent of separated and divorced men were living in households with no children, in contrast to 44.5 per cent of their female counterparts.
The fall in the average number of children per family in recent years – from 2.0 children in 1991 to 1.8 in 1996, to 1.6 in 2002 and 1.4 in 2006 – has levelled off to remain at just below 1.4 in 2011 with a high number of births between 2006 and 2011 (363,500 births) was a contributing factor in this slowdown.
There were 344,944 couples without children, of which 261,652 were married and 83,292 were cohabiting.