I do enjoy a good trawl through statistics - and that enjoyment is even more keen when it relates directly or indirectly to the lives of those around me. And the extraordinary demographic bubble now working its way through our secondary schools and towards the leaving cert very clearly relates to anybody studying and teaching in Irish schools right now.
As the graph here shows, the number of babies born in Ireland has only gone above 70,000 on a few occasions since the early 1900s (when it was consistently above that figure).
It came close during WW2. - which obviously had something to do with the War, but I don't know exactly what. The 2 years when births surged coincided with similar surges in emigration. My best guess is that that the emigrants were mainly men going to either fight or work in the UK, and that the babies were their parting gifts?
There was a similar surge in the late 40s. Presumably as they all returned.
Whatever was going on, the total number of births surged in the early and late 40s - but didn't quite break that 70,000 threshold.
Births surged again around 1980 and went well over 70,000.
That's an era I have some memories of - and again I can't really see what was going on. There wasn't much work, there wasn't much money and - as I recall - there wasn't even much hope. Emigration surged over the following decade, but it was quite flat from 1979 - 1981, so my parting gift theory hardly works here.
One possibility is a baby-boom-echo. Every time there's a spike in births, there's another spike in births about 30 years later - as the first cohort reaches maturity and start to have babies of their own. So maybe that post-war late-40s surge was just playing itself out.
And then there was another spike in the latter years of the Celtic Tiger, and I think we can all figure that one out. Births rose by a staggering 28% from 2001 to 2009, where it peaked at 75,554. That's a rise of 37% from the 1994 low-point.
Births were over 70,000 from 2007 to 2012
And, life being what it is, those babies have now grown older and they've gone to school and they're currently somewhere in their teens and working their way through the second level system. They'll be doing the leaving cert from next summer up to 2030 - with the peak likely to be in 2027.
Leaving cert figures each year closely match birth figures from 18 years before, Obviously inward and outward migration has an effect, but quite a muted effect: presumably less people move around the world when they have young children to deal with.
So, the low point in leaving cert figures was in 2012 (that birth cohort from 1994). And the peak will be 2027 (the kids who are now in 3rd yr or TY).
And then there will be a huge drop. Despite a small blip in 2021* the number of births has continued to fall since 2009, to as low as 54,000 last year: a 30% drop. And presumably the number of students will follow a similar fall.
There are obviously regional variations within this. Anecdotally, it sees that many Dublin primary schools are still full, and I've heard similar from other cities. Though even on the edge of Dublin where I live, I see primary schools that were once full to overflowing are now holding open days and advertising themselves. There are no hiding places from demographics.
So what does this tell us of the class of 2027 - and really for the classes of 2025-2030? Presumably it tells us that having spent their childhood in crowded schools, they're now likely to find themselves entering crowded 3rd level institutions. Competing in the CAO system against more and more kids for more-or-less the same number of places: nobody is looking to build huge new buildings to accommodate them - because they can see that collapse in numbers coming up right behind them.
And they'll be emerging into a world with an ever more over-crowded housing market. And fighting for space in over-crowded public transport.
Hopefully as they move through their twenties, they'll begin to find a bit of breathing space because of the low birth cohorts that follow. Until they reach their 30s, and begin to have babies of their own. Where the afore-mentioned baby-echo will kick in again and we see a surge in births around about 2040 and the whole cycle repeats!
Whatever happens, they are an extraordinary generation. Good luck to them!
*we got a covid puppy in our house. It seems other people opted for a baby.
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