We are heading for a grandparent and grandchild shortage. When families averaged four children, 100 grandparents could expect to have 400 grandchildren. At the current total fertility rate of 1.5, 100 grandparents can expect only 56 grandchildren. The CSO predicts that the total fertility rate will drop to 1.3 by 2037, which means that every 100 grandparents will have just 42 grandchildren. The replacement rate is considered to be 2.1.
While car window stickers may proclaim someone a proud mum of a fur baby, I suspect that being a proud grandma of a fur baby will not substitute for a lack of grandchildren.
The Iona Institute (of which I am a patron) recently published a paper based on the CSO statistics, On the Wrong Course, discussing the decline in both marriage and fertility rates in Ireland. Our population continues to grow due to something called population momentum, which disguises the extent to which people are marrying less and having fewer children.
Women born during periods of higher fertility continue to have children for many years, although at a much lower individual fertility rate, while older people are living longer.
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Nonetheless, we reached “peak baby” in 2010, when the number of births was highest, and “peak child” in 2024, where more children are transitioning into adulthood than are being born, even though deaths will not outnumber births until 2047.
China’s population is now the lowest since records began in 1949, a bleak example of population momentum. China fell below replacement levels around 1992, but deaths did not outnumber births until 2022. Its fertility rate of one is now catastrophically low.
Marriage is also in decline in China, where 19.5 per cent of households were single-person in 2024, compared with 7.8 per cent two decades earlier. Not just elderly people but also many young women are living alone. Loneliness is rampant. As a result, Are You Dead? is the most popular paid app download. The user has to press a button daily. After two days’ failure to do so, an emergency contact is alerted.
China is reaping a grim harvest from its brutal, coercive one-child policy from 1979 to 2015, which now threatens its economic future and social cohesion as the population rapidly ages.
The one-child policy was a disaster but everything in Chinese culture now is geared to having one child. When China announced a three-child policy, cynicism abounded. One person declared on social media, “I’m not buying three Rolls-Royces because there’s any restriction, but because they’re expensive.” Children are now being seen in the same light as a luxury car that is effectively out of reach for all but a tiny elite.
In Ireland, we have no history of coercion when it comes to limiting families, but ask grandparents who are dying for grandchildren whether there is a problem. Our population is not just ageing, but women are having babies later. The average Irish first-time mother is now 31.7 years old, the oldest in Europe*.
[ Number of babies born to women aged 45 and over rises 80% in 10 years - CSOOpens in new window ]
Even today, there is still a connection between marriage and birth rates. The average age of marriage is almost 38 years old for men and almost 36 years old for women.
Grandparents are therefore also older. When I discussed this issue with the redoubtable Joe Finnegan of Shannonside Northern Sound Radio, the first comment after the item pointed out that if young parents want help from grandparents, they had better bear in mind the age of the grandparents when they have children. I could just imagine the heavy hints being dropped in that commenter’s family.
Insensitive questions to individuals about their plans to have children that may not take into account that they might be, for example, struggling with infertility, are never justified. But challenging the way our society actively makes decisions that militate against having children is vital. An Amárach/Iona poll in 2022 showed that people want more children than they actually have. Housing, the cost of living and the general air of permacrisis all discourage people from having children, but so do unquestioned norms.
There is a strong cultural script that young people should defer getting married, particularly to travel and have a good time, as though having children marks the death of all dreams.
My daughter has been a bridesmaid at several weddings where the couples were in their mid-20s, all of whom had to fend off well-meaning queries as to why they were getting married so young.
Not so long ago, you were assumed to be a capable adult by your mid-20s. What a colossal mess we have made that normal milestones such as forming a stable relationship, owning your own home and having children recede ever farther into the distance today.
While there is rightly a focus on the pensions crisis that an older population will precipitate, this ignores the emotional toll.
Older and younger generations are good for each other. Older people stay healthier both physically and mentally, and grandchildren benefit from wisdom a screen can never provide. A society with fewer grandparent-grandchild relationships will be a colder and sadder place.
*This column was amended on February 12th 2026 to correct an error in the average age of first time mothers in Ireland. The original stated that the average age was 33.2, which is incorrect.
