Press release from The Iona Institute
One in four Gen Zers will never have children, a new study forecasts
Will this be by choice or circumstance?
June 2, 2026 – One in four members of ‘Gen Z’ look set never to have children, a new paper from the Iona Institute forecasts. The paper is called ‘Choice or Circumstance? Rising Childlessness in Ireland’.
The document examines trends in childlessness by generation starting with women born in 1955 (the ‘baby boomers’). It finds that only 13.5pc of this group were still childless at age 45. But this looks set to rise to around 24pc among women born in the late 1990s, based on current trends.
A huge question is whether this will be by choice or circumstance? That is, how much childlessness will have been planned, and how much will be unplanned and forced upon them by circumstance, such as the cost of living?
An Amarach Research poll commissioned by the Iona Institute in 2022, showed that 85pc of people want to have at least two children and only 2pc expressed a wish for no children. The results did not vary significantly by age.
We also see a big rise in the number of people availing of infertility treatments, which indicates that a lot of childlessness is unplanned.
The report charts a huge increase in the number of women still childless by age 30. Among those born in the late 1950s, only 30.9pc were childless at age 30. Among those born in the early 1990s, the number had increased to 63.6pc.
The longer a person delays having children, the more likely it is they will never have any.
According to CSO data, the average man is now almost 38 getting married and the average woman is almost 36, and even though many children are now born outside marriage, fertility rates and marriage rates tend to go up and down together.
Commenting on the report, Breda O’Brien, a spokesperson for The Iona Institute said: “Once upon a time, we used to worry about people having more children than they planned, but now we need to start worrying much more about them having fewer than they wish for, and in many cases, having none at all, and consider the amount of pain and distress this will cause”.
She continued: “A situation in which people are having fewer children than they planned for, and in a growing number of cases will end up childless, is a personal tragedy, but also has very significant social and economic consequences because of the effects of an ageing population and growing loneliness”.
She added: “As a society, we need to debate why this is happening. Is it purely a result of the high cost of living, or it is also because young people are today often encouraged to put off starting a family until they are well into their 30s, by which time it might be too late? One way or the other, it is a phenomenon we should discuss far more widely if our aim is to help people to achieve their eventual life goals”.
ENDS
Notes
- The Iona Institute is a Christian advocacy and research body.
- A link to the paper is here: https://ionainstitute.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IONA-Report-Childlessness-by-Age-v2-WEB.pdf
