Did the Condom change Ireland?

Winty

In Ireland, legal condom sales were allowed for the first time in 1978. Before that you either had to travel up North or try to pull out in time to hit fresh air.

Now since 1978 has the legal sales of condom had any effect on the population, has the condom stopped any recordable number of births?

In a parallel 2010 in that condoms are still illegal has the Irish population exploded with Millions of unwanted babies.

So my question is has the condom reduced the Irish populations total?

Joey the lips

My own opinion is that the condom has resulted in 2 things in ireland.

1, A reduction in std's and the spread of HIV/Aids

2. The increase in permiscuios sex(misspell and not that i am complaining.)

I doubt it has had a major effect on the population as women were traveling for the morning after pill and abortions around this time as well.


I would say the biggestest achievement of the condom is reducing the spread of std's

ChocolateSauce

Yes- it is no longer normal to have 7-12 children.

That_Guy

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Yes- it is no longer normal to have 7-12 children.

Plus people can't afford to have many children these days.

Sleepy

That_Guy wrote: »

Plus people can't afford to have many children these days.

I doubt that's anything to do with it. However bad it seems, as a nation we're still better off than we were in the 80's. People couldn't afford bigger families in the past any better than we can, they just didn't waste as much money on material crap.

This got me interested OP. I'd started a post about half an hour ago, paid a visit to the CSO website and came back to post after putting some graphs together.

First I looked at the number of births in Ireland which seemed to take quite a slide in Ireland after the introduction of the condom:


Then I realised that Ireland experienced massive emmigration during the 80's, particularly amongst the generation that would have been due to start having families then so I took the age range of 15 to 49 and got population figures for the same time period (gaps as census data is not annual):


From this I extrapolated the number of births as a percentage of the section of the population of child rearing age (divided by two to account for it taking a couple to produce a child) and got the following:


So, it would seem that the number of children being had by Irish people has certainly dropped off. Whether this is entirely down to the condom being legal, the increased availability of other means of contraception and the societal shift away from the church is another matter. I'd imagine it's a mixture of all of them.

Given Joey the lips point that the widespread availability of the condom and the pill has almost certainly contributed to a rise in the amount of sex being had (no figures available for this one! However, it stands to reason that both casual and relationship based sex has increased in our ever-more sexualised culture) and, it would seem, a drop in conception rates.

I doubt the data's as easy to find on their impact on STD's but I'd be stunned if there's not an inverse correlation between condom sales and STD levels.

Winty

Thank You Sleepy

Great work and your research opens more great questions.

So we can see that the simple little condom is only part of the debate

Thanks again Sleepy very good hunting

irishh_bob

That_Guy wrote: »

Plus people can't afford to have many children these days.

some cant afford not to have many , its their main form of income as anyone watcing frontline last night will have learned

The Corinthian

The theory goes that when you legalize something you legitimize the culture surrounding it and that this may in fact have a greater (and opposite) impact than what was sought in the original legalization.

On this basis, one can suggest that the legalization of condoms further sexualized Irish society - that is made the idea of pre-marital sex more acceptable, practical and permissive. An increased incidence in one-night stands and other casual or open relationships, would have thus followed.

Condoms, as with other contraceptives, are effective only if used properly. If not - if the parties are drunk, or forget, or didn't happen to have one on them but still decide to have sex, etc. - then they are not. One can argue that casual sexual relationships, in particular (drunken, as they tend to be in Ireland) one-night stands will have a much higher incidence of improperly used (or unused) contraception.

Question is, if the introduction increased behaviour such as one-night stands, and these in turn have a incidence of doing precisely what condoms are designed to avoid, was the net result an increase in both unplanned pregnancies and certain STD's (some STD's are not blocked by condoms - pubic lice and genital warts, for example).

I suspect any causatory link would be almost impossible to determine. Condoms are not the only thing that has changed in Ireland in the thirty or so years.

Interesting to consider though.

Zombrex

Sleepy wrote: »

Given Joey the lips point that the widespread availability of the condom and the pill has almost certainly contributed to a rise in the amount of sex being had (no figures available for this one! However, it stands to reason that both casual and relationship based sex has increased in our ever-more sexualised culture) and, it would seem, a drop in conception rates.

Actually studies in America found that greater availability of condoms decreased sexual activity. Go figure :pac:

Sleepy

That's so counter-intuitive I'd have to question it Wicknight!

I could potentially understand it having no impact on sexual activity or even a decrease in instances of penetrative sex (a more liberalised society perhaps engaging in more of other practices at the expense of actual intercourse perhaps) but wider availability of barrier contraception having a negative causal effect on rates of sexual activity sounds wildly wrong!

Bottle_of_Smoke

Sleepy wrote: »

That's so counter-intuitive I'd have to question it Wicknight!

I could potentially understand it having no impact on sexual activity or even a decrease in instances of penetrative sex (a more liberalised society perhaps engaging in more of other practices at the expense of actual intercourse perhaps) but wider availability of barrier contraception having a negative causal effect on rates of sexual activity sounds wildly wrong!

Might be some reasons. If condoms available generally a lot of people will only have a one night stand with a condom. But then lets say there was nowhere open to get condoms when they were neccesary.

Zombrex

Sleepy wrote: »

That's so counter-intuitive I'd have to question it Wicknight!

I could potentially understand it having no impact on sexual activity or even a decrease in instances of penetrative sex (a more liberalised society perhaps engaging in more of other practices at the expense of actual intercourse perhaps) but wider availability of barrier contraception having a negative causal effect on rates of sexual activity sounds wildly wrong!

A possibly explanation put forward by the researchers trying to figure out why this happened is that with increased public availability of condoms there is increases reminder of the dangers of sex (pregnancy and STIs) which decreases the desire to have sex. The act of buying or putting on a condom is sort of a wake up call.

This psychological phenomena has been found in other areas, there is a name for it but I can't remember what it is, something like awareness deterrent. Wide spread advertisement of how to safely prepare a BBQ causes a drop in BBQs, advertisements of anti-malaria tablets lead to a drop in travel to malaria countries. Etc etc

Even if you are telling people the safe/safer way to do something you still end up reminding them of the realities of it.

I linked to the study before, I'll see if I can dig it out.

ChocolateSauce

That_Guy wrote: »

Plus people can't afford to have many children these days.

It's more that they don't want to afford them. There is an inverse correlation between wealth and family size.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Daftendirekt

Wicknight wrote: »

A possibly explanation put forward by the researchers trying to figure out why this happened is that with increased public availability of condoms there is increases reminder of the dangers of sex (pregnancy and STIs) which decreases the desire to have sex. The act of buying or putting on a condom is sort of a wake up call.

This psychological phenomena has been found in other areas, there is a name for it but I can't remember what it is, something like awareness deterrent. Wide spread advertisement of how to safely prepare a BBQ causes a drop in BBQs, advertisements of anti-malaria tablets lead to a drop in travel to malaria countries. Etc etc

Even if you are telling people the safe/safer way to do something you still end up reminding them of the realities of it.

I linked to the study before, I'll see if I can dig it out.

Is this it, by any chance?

JustinDee

Winty wrote: »

In Ireland, legal condom sales were allowed for the first time in 1978. Before that you either had to travel up North or try to pull out in time to hit fresh air.

Now since 1978 has the legal sales of condom had any effect on the population, has the condom stopped any recordable number of births?

That was over the pharmacy counter.
Condoms were not on general sale in this country, incredibly, until the early 90s.