MOST people in Ireland still marry, but the likelihood of remaining unmarried increased among young adults between 1986 and 2006.According to the ESRI report published yesterday, cohabitation is fast become the normal relationship mode for people in their 20s, often as a prelude to marriage in their 30s.
Aligned to later childbirth on the part of women, it has reinforced the move away from the traditional pattern of marriage and children at a younger age, a scenario now typical only of members of the Travelling community and some non-Irish nationals.
Cohabitation increased four-fold between 1996 and 2006, and a majority of people living together but not married in the 35 to 45 years age bracket have children.
According to the report: "The trend away from marriage among young adults is partly due to the large rise in cohabitation.
"At age 25 in 2006, twice as many people cohabit as are married. Cohabitation peaks at 28 years, after which marriage becomes more popular. Mostly, cohabitation appears to be a prelude to marriage, but the increase in cohabiting couples with children suggests that a minority of cohabitees may prefer continued cohabitation."
According to the report, non-Irish nationals are more likely to be married, a result of higher levels of marriage among people from the 10 EU accession states and from outside Europe.
Likewise, Muslims are more likely to marry and less likely to cohabit than the majority Catholic population, while that pattern is reversed among the non-religious population.
A European study in 2001 placed Ireland second in terms of the percentage of 25 to 29-year-olds who had never married.
The number of cohabiting couples rose from 31,300 in 1996 to 121,800 in 2006, although 15% of cohabitees were previously married and are in a second or subsequent relationship.
Using new data from 2006, the study shows that at 25 years of age just 9% of the population are married, but of those that are unwed at that age, 19% are cohabiting.
At the age of 28 years, 25% of the population are married and 22% are cohabiting – the point in age at which marriage overtakes cohabitation as a form of relationship.
However, there was a rise in the number of people in the 30 to 34-year-old bracket who are both unmarried and not in a relationship.
This is not matched in other age groups.
For example, the proportions of men aged 55 to 59 years who are single dropped from 25% in 1986 to 15% in 2006, while for women in the same age group the drop over the same period was from 16% to 10%. This is likely to change in future, according to the report.
"As the incidence of singlehood among people at that and higher ages is likely to grow in the years ahead, arising from the feed-through effects of recent declines in marriage, it is likely that we will also see a growth in cohabitation among the over-50s," it states.
It adds that those in lower social classes are more likely to marry young, but across society marrying young is now rare.
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