The ongoing decline in religious practice will deepen our coming demographic crisis because it will almost certainly mean that fewer people marry and have children, a new paper from The Iona Institute says. This will accelerate population ageing, even allowing for high immigration.

The paper, called ‘Religion, Marriage and Fertility: Shall the Religious Inherit Ireland?’ shows that religious people are more likely than their secular counterparts to marry and have children. If there are fewer religious people in the overall population, then marriage and fertility rates will almost certainly decline further.

At present, Ireland’s fertility rate is just 1.5, well below the replacement level of 2.1 and is projected by the CSO to fall by more. Marriage rates have been declining since the 1970s and couples are now typically well into their 30s when they marry, if they marry at all.

The paper says: “If the religious share of the population drops too much, that will be very bad for Ireland because our fertility rate is likely to sink further. Ironically, a secular society needs a certain baseline number of religious people if it is to continue”.

The paper also raises the possibility that in the coming decades, the religious share of the population might actually begin to increase again simply by virtue of the fact that religious people have more children. It is also possible that as the demographic crisis takes hold, some young people might re-embrace religions like Christianity that strongly value marriage and having children.

Commenting on the paper, the CEO of The Iona Institute, David Quinn, said: “The looming demographic crisis has not received anything like enough attention in Ireland and in particular we have overlooked the link between the decline in religious practice and the decline in our marriage and fertility rates. “

He added: “In recent debates about religion, there has been too much focus on its negative aspects rather than its positive aspects which include better physical and mental health, lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse, more giving of time and money to charity as well as higher rates of marriage, lower rates of divorce and higher fertility levels.

“We hope our paper will make a contribution to our understanding of the coming demographic crisis and in particular will raise awareness of the very important contribution religious practice makes to societal and personal wellbeing. The decline in religious practice is by no means the boon some people appear to think.”

ENDS