Median weekly earnings among males in married couples were 35.3% higher than among males in one-parent families with children, while females in married couples with children had earnings 63.2% higher than their counterparts in one-parent families.
Median weekly earnings were lowest for employments among one-parent families with children at €491.20 and highest for employments among married couples with children at €911.35.
In general, the distribution of earnings among males in each family unit type followed a similar trend to the total male population, while a considerably higher proportion of females in one-parent families with children were at the lower end of the distribution, compared with other females.
Referring to a so-called “earning gap”, Dr Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Earnings Analysis Division, said: “In 2022, the largest earnings gap between female parents in married couples and one-parent families was in the 25-34 years age group where median weekly earnings among females in married couples with children were 102.2% higher than their one-parent counterparts”.
The biggest threat to humanity isn’t climate change, the next pandemic, or a nuclear apocalypse but rather a lack of babies.
That’s according to author and demographer Paul Morland. The fertility rate in Ireland is now 1.5, which is well below the replacement level fertility rate of 2.1 babies per couple.
He told Claire Byrne on RTE Radio 1 that global birth rates are plummeting so much there soon won’t be enough young people to take care of the aging population.
Referencing his new book “No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children” he laid out his case for pro-natalism: that a healthy society has a reasonable number of children where people are having babies by choice—not because they cannot control their fertility.
He denied it is a “right-wing” concern, citing numerous left-wing thinkers and centrist politicians who share it. Regardless of politics or ideology, he said, “people matter”.
Fears of a ‘population bomb’ are “fifty years out of date”, with even quite poor countries such as Jamaica and Thailand now also not having enough children to replace themselves.
He said societies need to move forward to the 2030s not back to the 1950s to give couples the support they need to have more children.
But, he added, policy changes alone won’t cut it – cultural change is necessary as well.
The State-paid “free” contraception scheme has been expanded to include women aged 32 to 35. Despite the roll-over of free contraception to different age groups, the abortion rate in Ireland keeps climbing. Last year, over 10,000 took place.
Launched in September 2022, the scheme now covers all women aged 17 to 35 inclusive.
It comes despite a 2019 Working Group on Access to Contraception, under the then Health Minister, Simon Harris, say the proposal would probably be a waste of public funds.
There has not been a corresponding scheme to help women achieve the number of children they want.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced that from today, women who are ordinarily resident in Ireland and aged between their 17th birthday and the day before their 36th birthday will be eligible for fully-state-funded contraception.
The service covers the cost of consultations and prescriptions for a range of chemical contraceptive options.
These include long-acting contraception (Larcs) such as injections, implants and hormonal and copper intra-uterine devices and systems (coils).
The scheme also includes emergency contraception in addition to the oral contraceptive pill, patch and ring, but it does not cover condoms or surgical sterilization.
Two disappeared Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests seized by Russian forces from their church in southern coastal city of Berdyansk in November 2022 have been released from captivity.
Despite the danger, following the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Redemptorist Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta chose to stay in the occupied territories, ministering to both Greek and Roman Catholic communities and providing hope under occupation.
According to the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the priests were accused of illegal possession of weapons, “charges fabricated to justify their imprisonment”.
“Their prolonged detention was marked by a lack of concrete information about their whereabouts and wellbeing, despite reports of torture and abuse. Despite this, their faith and hope persisted”, said a spokesperson.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, expressed profound gratitude to the Holy See, particularly to Pope Francis, for their efforts in securing the priests’ release.
Despite the joy of this news, ACN recalls that many innocent civilians remain in custody, and invites friends and benefactors to continue to pray for their release, and for peace in Ukraine.
There was another big increase in the number of abortions as 10,033 of the procedures were carried out in Ireland last year, the highest number ever, according to figures released by the Department of Health.
This compared to 8,156 in the previous year while, in the first full year of the law’s operation in 2019, there were 6,666 terminations. In 2018, a little under 3,000 Irish women went to the UK for abortions.
The vast majority of the abortions, 9,876, were in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy when the procedure is available on demand and no reason is needed.
Meanwhile, the annual cost of providing drug-induced abortions through GPs and hospitals is now €7.4m a year. Drug-induced abortions use the abortion pill and induce a miscarriage. Other abortions are performed surgically with the child being killed in the womb before being extracted.
It includes €5.6m in GP payments and medications with €1.7m spent on terminations in hospitals.
The costs provided by the HSE are the first time the funding for abortion has been detailed since the 2018 Act legalising it came into force.
Commenting on the figures, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said: “The colossal 250% increase in abortions since the new law took effect is extremely troubling”.
She added that the “lack of concern” shown by the Government towards this tragedy of seeing 1 in 6 babies’ lives end in abortion “needs to end”.
A Catholic priest in India says “crisis, conflict and violence are becoming the way of life” in the country as it also suffered a rebuke in the U.S. State Department’s 2023 religious freedom report.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. government is concerned about the increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship of members of minority faiths in India.
“Christian communities reported that local police aided mobs that disrupted worship services over accusations of conversion activities, or stood by while mobs attacked them and then arrested the victims on conversion charges,” Blinken said on Wednesday.
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over the national government in 2014, religious minorities have complained about increased harassment.
Jesuit Father Prakash Louis said that two years ago, illustrious former civil servants had appealed to Mr. Modi to enforce rule of law in the country, “But nothing has happened”.
“On the other hand, crisis, conflict and violence are becoming the way of life of the country. What is more deplorable is that rulers themselves are engaged in divisive and destructive politics today” Louis said.
The bill purports to ban commercial surrogacy contracts in Ireland, but allows the payment so-called ‘reasonable expenses’ including any ‘loss of earnings’ while a woman is donating an egg or working as a surrogate.
It also provides legal recognition of those who engage in surrogacy contracts abroad, including commercial contracts.
One of the opponents of the bill, Senator Ronan Mullen, said it was a sad outcome because of the denial of human rights and the exploitation of surrogate women that will result from it.
He said “the day will come when we will look back and say this was retrograde legislation because it put the rights and aspirations of some people ahead of the rights of others and did damage to other people’s rights. I think we will see the day where this legislation is reversed because it is wrong to deny children their rights upfront and in advance. It is wrong to deny the real experience of surrogates who are abused”.
The North’s Catholic bishops have called on voters to urge politicians to defend the right to life and end a controversial cap on child benefits.
In their pastoral reflection ‘Give Reasons to Hope’, issued in advance of the July 4 Westminster elections, the bishops stated that respect for the fundamental right to life “has been subjected to a reductionist political culture, where people are valued more and more for their utility, or their positive cost to benefit analysis, rather than for their inherent dignity”.
They called on Catholics to ask candidates: “What will you do to ensure the most vulnerable, at the beginning or end of their life, will not be at risk from pressure or harm from others to have their lives ended or to end it for themselves? What position will you take in forthcoming Westminster debates about introducing euthanasia and even more radical laws extending the limits on abortion, and discriminating against those in the womb with disabilities?”
They also said the outgoing Westminster government’s two-child cap on child benefit was, “quite simply, socially and morally abhorrent”.
Calling it a “tax on having children”, they say it has compounded the levels of child poverty in the North.
The jump in abortion numbers in California is due to Government policies that amount to ‘systemic coercion’ in favour of abortion over helping women give birth in crisis pregnancy situations.
That’s according to Molly Sheahan, associate director for healthy families at the California Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the California bishops.
Clinics in California provided an estimated 179,700 abortions in 2023, a 16.6% increase since 2020.
While there’s been a huge promotional push by the State for abortion, parenting and adoption resources haven’t been promoted at all, say Catholic and pro-life advocates.
“There’s no pregnancy.ca.gov,” said Sheahan. Expectant families have to do their own legwork to tap into the state’s social services or to find support from a local pregnancy center, she explained, adding that waiting lists for affordable housing and childcare are very long. Pregnant mothers may have difficulty accessing health care as at least 46 California maternity wards have closed since 2012.
“If you’re searching for abortion, everything will be provided, but if you choose to parent you really are on your own,” Sheahan said. “What this amounts to is a systemic coercion of women.”
A proposed religious charter school must not receive Government funding according to a decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma..
The school, which would have been the first faith-based charter school in the US, was pitched as an online Catholic school for students in rural areas of Oklahoma, with religious instruction woven throughout the curriculum.
But instead of operating as a private school with families paying tuition, St. Isidore applied for status as a charter school, a type of public school that is financed by taxpayer dollars, but run independently.
The plan, which was being widely watched for its potential to set a national precedent, met an obstacle in the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled that a religious charter school would violate the state constitution.
“Enforcing the St. Isidore contract would create a slippery slope,” the court wrote, directing the state to rescind its contract with St. Isidore. Six justices agreed, while two dissented all or in part.
