Ireland has one of the fastest ageing populations in Europe, according to new EU data. While the median age of the EU’s population increased by 2.2 years between 2014 and last year, Ireland’s increased by 3.6 years. The median population age across the EU is 44.7.

The median age in Ireland is 39.4 in Ireland chiefly because we had higher fertility rates on average for longer than most of the rest of the EU, resulting in a somewhat younger population. However, Ireland’s fertility rate is now 1.5, well below the replacement level of 2.1 and in line with the EU average.

A median age of 44.7 years means that half the population of Europe was younger than this while half was older. Across the EU, it ranged from 39.4 years in Ireland to 48.7 years in Italy.
The increases were recorded in all EU countries, except Malta (-0.7 years) and Germany (-0.1 years).

The ageing of the population was most pronounced in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Slovakia, with the median increasing by 4.0 years. The median age in Cyprus, Spain and Poland increased by 3.8 years.

Immigrants on average are only two years younger than the native-born population.

Compared with the native-born population, foreign-born people were overrepresented between the ages of 20 and 54, while they were underrepresented in both the younger and older age groups. In total, 59.7% of the foreign-born population was between the ages of 20 and 54, compared with 42.1% of the native-born population.