Councillor Tom McDonnell, elected to Kildare County Council, has apologised for saying that Irish women need to breed more. He initially dug himself in deeper by saying that he was reared on a farm and he meant breed in the sense of breeding a litter of pups.
I was reared on a farm. Neither my father nor my brothers ever had any difficulty distinguishing between farm animals and women. Nor did they ever use the word “breed” about human beings having babies.
In the interests of full disclosure, my husband’s niece Melissa Byrne, an Aontú candidate, was part of an epic series of rechecks of the 10th count in Newbridge during the local elections. If the final of four rechecks had been in her favour, she would most likely have been elected instead of Tom McDonnell, according to those tallying at the centre. None of this has any bearing on this article.
McDonnell is afraid that the Irish race will die out. On Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan, he expressed concern that the most popular baby boy’s name in Galway was Muhammad. His call for Irish women to have more babies does not include Irish Muslims, or presumably, immigrants, as he was elected on an anti-immigrant ticket.
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There is no danger of the Irish race, whatever that might mean, dying out. Sadly, rhetoric such as McDonnell’s makes it more difficult to discuss a real problem: Irish women are having fewer babies than they want.
[ Irish birth and fertility rates continue to decline, CSO figures showOpens in new window ]
In 2016, an OECD report stated that “at over 2.6 children for men and 2.8 children for women, desired personal family size is largest in Ireland”. However, our actual fertility rate declined from 2 in 2013 to 1.54 in 2023. Ignoring migration, a fertility rate of 2.1 is considered a replacement level. On paper, we are one of the richest countries in the world, yet families hesitate or are unable to have another child.
Fertility rates are going down across Europe. In January, Emmanuel Macron announced a “demographic rearmament”, a somewhat distasteful association of birth rates with war.
Japan is stagnant, and the lowest birth rates since 1899 were announced there last February. Japanese nappy makers have switched production to adult incontinence products because 30 per cent of the population is over 65 and 10 per cent is over 80.
What is going on? Factors affecting fertility are complex. In Ireland, people are having babies later. The average age of first-time mothers is now 31.6 years, while the average age of all mothers was 33.3 years at the end of 2023. This obviously shortens the window for having children.
Our disastrous housing crisis, the difficulties of balancing parenting with paid work, and declining marriage rates – all of these have had an impact on fertility rates.
We are also deluded about the effectiveness of assisted reproduction techniques. Research produced by Cork University Maternity Hospital in the Irish Medical Journal showed that people in their early 30s and under believe IVF to be 30-60 per cent effective. In fact, the live birth rate hovers at about 30 per cent in the UK for women aged 18-34 and declines precipitously to 10 per cent for women aged 43-44.
Some policies designed to increase birth rates are not as effective as you might think. The Finnish fertility rate in 2022 was 1.32 children, its lowest since records began in 1776. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are not much better
Ironically, the desire to be really good parents may also mean that people have fewer children. We feel that we have to constantly nurture and, yes, even entertain our children. An influential recent book, Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff, suggests that we should be doing the opposite. We should be giving our young children opportunities to work alongside us and to contribute to household tasks, as happened in cultures across the world for millenniums.
A subset of adults is opting for childlessness for various reasons, including the threat of climate change. Headlines such as this one in the New Yorker don’t help: The Morality of Having Kids in a Burning, Drowning World.
For all our alleged love of children, our culture often reduces having children to a personal or familial decision, and people are expected to manage or not based on that choice.
McDonnell wants tax breaks and free childcare to encourage Irish women to have babies. Although I agree with policies such as removing tax individualisation and direct payments that allow people to choose the childcare they want, some policies designed to increase birth rates are not as effective as you might think. For example, the Nordic countries have long been exemplars of state-supported childcare, and better work-life balance for women. But the Finnish fertility rate in 2022 was 1.32 children, the country’s lowest since records began in 1776. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are not much better, at 1.41, 1.52, and 1.55 respectively.
Anxiety lowers birth rates in more ways than one. Having a child is an act of faith in the future, a declaration of belief in beauty and hope despite all that is wrong with the world. Ultimately, raising fertility rates may be about helping human beings connect with a sense of meaning. It certainly has nothing to do with selective breeding programmes.