IRISH HOUSEHOLDS ARE larger on average than households in other European countries, according to a new report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). 

‘Household Size in Ireland: Stylised Facts in a Cross-Country Context’, published today, used data from an EU survey on income and living conditions to compare the trends in household size in Ireland to other European countries between 2005 and 2021.

The report found that Ireland has a high average household size on a cross-country
basis, a pattern that has remained for the last 20 years. 

It said the finding was mainly driven by a having a younger population and other demographics, such as a high fertility rate and a high share of households with children.

Dr Conor O’Toole, one of the authors of the report, said estimating the number of people per household is key when trying to determine the extent of housing supply that is needed. 

“We had seen that over a long, long period of time, way back to the 1960s, household size in Ireland had declined very rapidly, from about four in 1966 to around 2.17 where it is now,” he said.

“But it’s kind of flatlined. It hasn’t changed since the 2011 Census. We were trying to think a little bit about why, so we looked at other European countries to see how Ireland stacked up in compared to them.”

According to the data, Ireland had the highest household size between 2005 and 2021, followed by Spain, Portugal and Greece.

A second group of countries in the middle range of the household size distribution included Italy, France, the UK, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland.

The group of countries with the lowest household sizes were found to be the Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, as well as Germany. 

ESRI ESRI

Ireland had the second lowest age of adults per household during that period, with only Norway lower. It was also found to have the highest average number of children.

“This has some potential implications for Ireland’s future household size
trajectory as aging impacts will likely lead to lower household sizes over time
relative to other countries,” the report states.

When looking at the proportion of households with an adult child between 2005 and 2018, households in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy were more likely to have an adult child living there, with rates of between 10-15%. 

Ireland saw rates of 6.8%. However, this rose to 10.5% when looking at data from 2020 and 2021. 

In terms of heads of households between 2005 and 2021, the report states Ireland and Norway saw the highest share of household heads aged under 40.

A higher share of individuals are also married in Ireland, along with southern European countries such as Greece, Portugal and Italy. Divorce rates were also notably lower (below 10%) in Greece, Spain Italy and Ireland.

The report states that the under 30s are the only age group in Ireland to see an increase in household size over the 2007-2018 period.

“It is plausible that this may have been influenced by the well-documented housing affordability and availability issues… but could also be due to high birth rates and demographic factors,” it states.

The ESRI said the extent of its findings suggests that demographic factors are likely to outweigh the effects of changes to housing supply, meaning changes are likely driven by demographics.

O’Toole said that one of the motivations for trying to understand why the decline in household size has stalled since 2011 was trying to explore whether or not the current shortage of housing played a role in that.

“What we tried to do was look across countries at whether, if housing supply was higher and lower, did that change household size, and we actually did find a relationship there,” he said.

“If household supply goes up – if there are more houses per person to the population – then obviously household size can come down. Certainly, more housing supply should allow household size to decline in line with demographics.”

He added that the ESRI would expect household size to decline over time as the population ages and demographics change. 

“What we need is a sufficient amount of the right-sized housing units and dwellings to allow that natural demographic shift to happen over time,” he said.

“But I think it could be slow because these demographic factors take time to work through and with a high share of children under 18, it will take time for household size to decline over time.”