The Republic's population is expected to jump from the current level of just over 4 million people to 5.5 million by 2030, the MacGill Summer School was told.
"To put matters into perspective, this implies that the population is projected to grow by some 1.2 per cent on an annual average basis in the next 25 years, compared with 0.7 per cent in the last 25 years," said Central Statistics Office official Aidan Punch. He added that projected births and deaths over the next 25 years would not differ significantly from the corresponding earlier period.
"Births are projected to average around 63,300 annually, with deaths averaging 32,400, leading to an annual natural increase in population of 30,900," he said.
"However, migration is projected to differ markedly from that experienced in the past. The assumptions underlying the projections imply an annual average migration gain of about 25,000 over the next quarter of a century." Mr Punch said that just over 30 per cent of the population was aged under 15 years in 1980, while the relevant proportion aged over 65 years was 10.7 per cent.
Currently, those percentages are 20.9 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively. "By 2030, it is projected that the young will make up 18.8 per cent of the projected 5.5 million population, while older persons will account for 17.5 per cent of the total," he added.
He said that by expressing young and old sections of the population as a percentage of those aged 15 to 64 years, an estimate of age-dependency could be derived. This, he added, had fallen from 70 per cent, 25 years ago, to its present level of 47 per cent. But this was projected to increase again, mainly as a result of an ageing population, to reach a level of 55 per cent by 2030. He said that the downward trend in average household size is likely to continue over the next 25 years, if not quite at the pace of the last 25 years. Even on a conservative basis, this would result in about two million private households by 2030.
Three out of four of those households are likely to have less than four persons in them, while the number of one-person households is projected to increase from its current level of over 270,000 to 500,000 by 2030. With an ageing population, it is expected that the proportion of persons aged 65 and over, living alone, would also maintain its upward path.
Mr Punch said that based on settlement patterns, it is likely that three out of four people would live in built-up areas by then. However, the question is whether low-density urban sprawl continues or whether built-up areas are developed to allow for more medium and high-rise apartment blocks.
