Families in the UK are increasingly having only one child as fifty per cent more Gen X women report having just one baby compared with their mothers’ generation. A new Iona Institute report projects that one in four young women in Ireland will never have a child.

Official figures show the proportion of women who have one child rose 49 per cent to 18.5 per cent for women born in 1979, from 12.4 per cent for women born in 1953.

The 1979 year group is the latest “completed family” cohort, meaning they are not expected to have more children.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which released the data last week, indicated the trend would continue — with those born today expected to have even fewer children again.

An ONS report last month showed that the number of babies born in England and Wales had fallen to the lowest level since 1977, because couples are increasingly delaying having children until their thirties.

Anna Adamecz, of the University College London, said that as families delayed having children, intentions for second children began to vanish as “time and fertility run out before the second child arrives”.