Marriage in Ireland has declined steeply since the 1980s, a new report has confirmed.

The report, entitled Family Figures: Family Dynamics and Family Types in Ireland, was published yesterday by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI),  and found that the number of people in alternative family forms, especially cohabitation and lone parent families, had risen dramatically.

It also finds that middle class people are far more ‘traditional’ than people from more disadvantaged areas in that middle class people are far more likely to wait until they are married before they have children than their working class counterparts.

Much of this information was already contained in a document issued by The Iona Institute in 2007 called ‘Marriage Breakdown and Family Structure in Ireland’.

According to the report, between 1986 and 2006, marriage rates for those 25 and under fell across all social classes. At age 25 in 2006, twice as many people cohabit as are married. Since 1996, it said there had been a fourfold rise in cohabitation, and this rate was consistent among all social groups.

However, rates of marriage rose among those aged over 30. The report showed that, after 28, most cohabiting couples had either split or gotten married.

The report also made clear the link between social class, and whether children were born outside marriage. According to the report the relationship between low educational attainment and the likelihood of becoming a lone mother “is extremely strong”.

One-quarter of women with lower second-level qualifications are never married lone mothers by their mid-20s, compared to less than 15 per cent with upper second-level qualifications and just 3 per cent of graduates.

The report showed that women with a third level degree were ten times less likely to be single parents at ages 25to 27 compared with those with no third level education.

The report also showed most women were now delaying having children until they reached 30 years of age, and older, with the majority now having two or three children. Over 1 in 6 women now have no children at age 45.

Minister for Social Welfare, Mary Hanafin, suggested that relationships and sexuality education was the key to reducing lone parenthood.

She added that it was not “surprising that lone parents were more likely to have a low socioeconomic background.”