# 1.4 Children per family



## dodo (1 Apr 2007)

It said today the average children in Ireland is 1.4 and that 20 years ago it was 2.2, This does not seem right 2.2 ,most family's I know from that generation have a least 4 children. what way is it calulated, I know of not one family where parents are in their 50,s and finished with having children and only had the  one child,


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## Marie M (1 Apr 2007)

Nearly everyone I know with kids has 3


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## ajapale (1 Apr 2007)

dodo said:


> It said today the average children in Ireland is 1.4 and that 20 years ago it was 2.2..............what way is it calulated?



Hi dodo,

Can you point a link to where you heard this statistic? It might be possible to determine how the statistic is calculated then.

Your post is a quite garbled and does not seem to make much sense, perhaps you could repost in a way that is more easily understood?

Thanks

aj


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## dodo (1 Apr 2007)

ajapale said:


> Hi dodo,
> 
> Can you point a link to where you heard this statistic? It might be possible to determine how the statistic is calculated then.
> 
> ...


Seems straight forward to me , reading a newspaper today it states the average amount of children per family is 1.4 and was 2.2 children  20yrs ago, I think thats all we need to know, I am just wondering is it worked out by age of parents, ie if you asked a young married couple of 24 yrs old good chance they wont start having a family until their late 20's,, most parents I think are finished having children by the age of 40, so the survey should be done on that type of age group,


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## tallpaul (1 Apr 2007)

Is it not a more straightforward calculation of the number of children in Ireland divided by the number of families??


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## Amygdala (1 Apr 2007)

I think ratio quoted is usually "Total fertility rate" rather than per family.


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## Joe Nonety (12 Apr 2007)

dodo said:


> It said today the average children in Ireland is 1.4 and that 20 years ago it was 2.2, This does not seem right 2.2 ,most family's I know from that generation have a least 4 children. what way is it calulated, I know of not one family where parents are in their 50,s and finished with having children and only had the one child,


 
There were a lot more nuns and priests back then who's average number of children was surely under 0.1.


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## Persius (12 Apr 2007)

AFAIK the replacement rate is 2.1. Less than that and your population is declining (assuming no net migration). Ireland has the highest rate in the EU of about 1.9. I'm sure a google will get the exact figure. If I remember correctly only Albania has a higher figure in Europe
Germany has one of the lowest figures at 1.4

Despite all this, the populations of most european countries are not declining. This can be accounted for by net immigration (and perhaps also people living longer, the calculation of 2.1 for replacement may have been made when mortality rates were higher and average lifetimes were lower).


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## auto320 (12 Apr 2007)

Joe Nonety said:


> There were a lot more nuns and priests back then who's average number of children was surely under 0.1.



No, the priests did their bit to keep up the average, it wasn't that!


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## rabbit (13 Apr 2007)

Joe Nonety said:


> There were a lot more nuns and priests back then who's average number of children was surely under 0.1.


 
Really ?  What about the two clerics on the stage with the pope in Galway all those years ago - they were secret fathers at the time.


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## Lipstick69 (23 Apr 2007)

To the original poster - my parents are in their late 50s and I'm an only child...not that unusual!


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