Number of unmarried mothers in Ireland?

JajaD

Hi, Im in the middle of my thesis and need to find the number of unmarried mothers in ireland. Does anyone know where i could find these figures?

Morag

Central statics office.

In what context are you using the term unmarried mothers, as there is a difference between a mother who is not married and a lone parent.

I do hope this is not going to include parents in long term relationships who have simply chosen not to marry...
edit: and all those other circumstances below

Permabear

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JajaD

Why do people jump on OP's immediately..mad!

Im a sociology final year student so i know all about society and how there are many reasons why men and women are unmarried, single, lone, or whatever label society puts on them.

Im using the figures to compare with figures from the early to mid twentieth century figures to try and find out if there is social stigma attached to single women (unmarried) who have children.

I know there is a higher level of lone parents (women) who are unmarried in Ireland compared to the early to mid twentieth century and seen as back then Ireland was strictly governed and influenced by Catholicism (which made it socially unacceptable for women to be independent lone parents, and now there is less of a Catholic influence on society so I would like to find out if the fact that religion has less power and influence over society does it make it more socially acceptable for women to be lone parents. Because the figures are higher now, it would seem that something in society has changed and i would like to know if religion has even some part in that.

Permabear

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JajaD

Permabear wrote: »

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I never asked anyone for different definitions of unmarried mothers.. i asked where i could find the figures for such information. I never said that a lone parent can only be a woman, however for my study i am interested in figures of unmarried WOMEN so i am not concerned with male parents for this study. I also asked if religion has SOME part to play in it not THE reason alone. If you look into the study of religion in irish society you would know that it is BECAUSE (but not only) of religion, that all of the different types of parenting you see today could not happen many years ago and why it can happen now. Its a very valid question.

I asked a question, but got like 6 questions back so to me that is being jumped on. I simply asked where i could find info on the number of unmarried women in ireland not for definitions or how to conduct my thesis. What way does the central statistics office define women who have had children outside of marriage?

JajaD

And it also doesnt matter what status the mother is anyway. My research is on women who gave birth to women outside of marriage. Simple as.

Permabear

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Permabear

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JajaD

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes but you see, as its a thesis, articles on the subject are better than just a table of figures from the obvious CSO site so i was hoping that i would have been given suggestions on what articles were published on the subject.

So according to what you said there, the answer i would need is 6,205. Simple. No need for extra unnecessary categorisation or definitions.


But thanks all the same for giving me loads of unnecessary info which i already knew.

JajaD

Surely you could cop on that it meant to say "My research is ON women who..." rather than for...

Silly

Permabear

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Permabear

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JajaD

Permabear wrote: »

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Permabear wrote: »

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Yet you have given so much time and effort into replying. Ive got better things to be doing than moderating internet forums.... Toodles

PonyPerson

Hi! Um i just stumbled on this looking for something else... if you have access to "academic search complete" database online that would probably be the best place to find most recent stats! or maybe "Economic and social data service" i've never used that one but it came up on my college online library??

Hope you find some useful info in one of those! Best of luck with it :-) !

blackmadra

I think Permabear is on his period or something :eek:

JajaD

I know, im getting that a lot on boards lately. When u ask a simple question people like to pounce on you. Its kinda off putting for a 'friendly' forum. I was merely asking for assistance and advice which i thought thats what boards was for. Seemingly not.

Permabear

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blackmadra

lol

Permabear

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Lavattack

JajaD wrote: »

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I just read this thread and must say I couldn't agree more with ya. Some people on here just like to make themselves look smarter than they are is all. Any-one who can take the time answer a question from a stranger should be doing it in a considerate manner. It was a simple question to begin with, I have no experience in the field what-so-ever and didn't know the answer but i knew well what the OP was asking for, as well as did every-one else im sure.

Good luck with your thesis JajaD.

Permabear wrote: »

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I am curious as to who got the infraction and for which quote??

Lavattack

Permabear wrote: »

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Guess that clears up one of my questions, thanks

Permabear

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Valmont

To be fair, JajaD, it doesn't sound like you have operationalised any of the definitions that pertain to your thesis. I would strongly advise you to explicitly delineate exactly what you mean by unmarried mothers and the "effect of religion" before going any further. A failure to sort this issue out will bring you lots of problems when it comes to interpreting any results that you find and your markers will pick up on the loose definitions and penalise you accordingly.

edit to myself: In future, before responding, read past post number seven.

looksee

Does anyone else find this thread very depressing? And I am not talking about the attempts to give useful replies.

amiable

I have to say i think the first few replies came across as being very helpful and actually trying to help the OP.

Somehow this was taken the way it was intended IMO.

Ostrom

Permabear wrote: »

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Ordinarily I would side with you on this but......I'm sure you know exactly where he is coming from, as one versed in the methodologies of many disciplines. I assume the OP's requested figures are more for context and that the study is qualitative, in which case, operationalisation (in the sense discussed above) is moot.

JajaD wrote: »

I know there is a higher level of lone parents (women) who are unmarried in Ireland compared to the early to mid twentieth century and seen as back then Ireland was strictly governed and influenced by Catholicism (which made it socially unacceptable for women to be independent lone parents, and now there is less of a Catholic influence on society so I would like to find out if the fact that religion has less power and influence over society does it make it more socially acceptable for women to be lone parents. Because the figures are higher now, it would seem that something in society has changed and i would like to know if religion has even some part in that.

In general there are better methods of researching such an influence (religon - lone parenting), and there are many publications discussing policy debates on state support - which show clear church influence in state correspondence - and more general statistics on phenomena such as declining domestic adoption placements, which we know from comparative studies are closely related to secularisation of social policy and, consequently a more favourable view of lone parenthood. (The latter step obviously being less empirically demonstrable).

On the OP's topic, there have been a number of studies conducted at EU level that have included variables on such topics (the ESS modules from the 1980's come to mind), but modelling the influence of religion is difficult. Sociologists dont tend to receive funding for long term panel studies, which would be essential for teasing age from cohort effects, and religiosity has many correlates.

Generally, the literature does support the OP's argument, but this should not, of course, excuse the need for statistical clarity.


edit (sources) - The adoption board annual reports used to list non-marital births under principal statistics, and also domestic adoptions as a percentage - this indicator obviously becomes less indicitive of general trends when intercountry adoptions rise over the 1990's. The reports were available on the old adoption board website, but you would need ones from the mid 90's or earlier. These should be available in your library under government publications. The Combat Poverty Agency also commissioned a study on lone mothers in the 90's, which I'm sure you have seen.

dashboard_hula

Its very late now, so stick with me - if the OP requires information on the effects or otherwise of Catholic influence on parenting/marriage over a period of time, then don't they require figures of unmarried mothers in the eyes of the Church? As in, would a woman married in a civil or other kind of ceremony still be regarded as married in the eyes of the OP's question? Because if Church marriages only count, then the results are going to be skewed even further, no?

OP, the rate of unmarried mothers rising on its own wouldn't necessarily indicate a waning of Church influence, even though as the previous poster said, it is borne out in other ways. Would records of Mass attendance not be able to help whatever theory you're trying to establish?

Ostrom

dashboard_hula wrote: »

Its very late now, so stick with me - if the OP requires information on the effects or otherwise of Catholic influence on parenting/marriage over a period of time, then don't they require figures of unmarried mothers in the eyes of the Church? As in, would a woman married in a civil or other kind of ceremony still be regarded as married in the eyes of the OP's question? Because if Church marriages only count, then the results are going to be skewed even further, no?

OP, the rate of unmarried mothers rising on its own wouldn't necessarily indicate a waning of Church influence, even though as the previous poster said, it is borne out in other ways. Would records of Mass attendance not be able to help whatever theory you're trying to establish?

There are a good few datasets with mass attendance estimates you should be able to access. The ISPAS dataset (ESRI, 2001) should be available publicly through the Irish Social Science Data Archive. The two links below bring you to the European Social Survey download page - I'm not sure if this will only open for me because I'm registered and at work, but give it a shot. The second link is direct to the download page - if you have a college email account, you should be able to register.

OP - if you've done a survey course already you should be able to run off a few basic tables - remember this is sample data (about 1700 for the Irish cohort), so you will need to report standard errors. There are four waves of survey data for Ireland, so you will be able to compare change over time since 2001 - which is a little limiting as you're just missing out on significant 80's - 90's dropoffs. Beyond this, check out the Irish Social Science Data Archive for links to publications of the EVS data, which take you back to the 1980's (apologies if this is beyond your needs).

http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/

http://ess.nsd.uib.no/downloadwizard/

The demographic variables allow you to sort households by conjugal status, age, occupation, employment status, education etc, and the religion variables measure religiosity, mass attendance and prayer. Other studies, interestingly, consistently show higher levels of reported religiosity than actual service attendance.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can check religiosity by age, gender, education and class - they rarely disappoint!

If you're not handy with stat software, the Irish Social Science Data Archive lets you play around with the data in its NESSTAR viewer - it is well worth familiarising yourself with, eliminates the need for SPSS / stata, and will let you add much more data to your argument.

Morag

I would think that two of the factors in the social change are:

Firstly the exposure of the Magdalene laundries and the way children were removed from the mother and sent for adoption, which has caused people to braven out having a pregnant daughter at home rather then sending her away to hide her shame.

And secondly the availability of abortion in the UK.
If unmarried women who were pregnant or who have children were shunned by the catholic church and their communities then more women would have travelled, so it is seen as the lesser of two evils.

It was family members, usually their fathers that put women in the laundries, it wasn't the priest it wasn't social workers, it wasn't the state it was family members due to socail pressures and that changed when the truth about the places were talked about.

The same social pressures were often put on men to marry the women they had 'got' pregnant. I know of one woman who was due to get married to a lad her father disapproved of and when her father found out she was pregnant put her in a laundry and her husband and father in law to be went and got her out once they found out where she was and they got married that very evening.

I know of someone who a priest refused to give communion to as she had a child and wasn't married and the woman's mother bawled him out of it in the church and said that he'd given it to the man who got her pregnant and refused to do the decent thing and marry her and that at least her daughter hadn't killed the baby but had it and who was he to judge when her daughter had been to confession.

CDfm

Best of luck with your thesis op.

Ireland's benefit system is weird in that mothers can opt out of the financial responsibility for themselves and their children.

Where people really need the help is with subsidised & adequete childcare.

This has been suggested by the OECD and countries like Belgium have been real innovators. .

An unmarried parent is not nesscessarily a lone parent .

There is also the presumption of paternity in marriage - and you have issues with "paternity fraud" -estimates very widely but are thought to be in the region 1 in 10 of children born in a marriage are not the fathers biological children.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/11/09/1162661797800.html

What about lesbian mothers - cohabiting females with children. - by definition they are unmarried. No one knows the number but I know 2 couples (really great people btw) and if I know them -god only knows what the real numbers are. .

CK2010

OP, i doubt it'll help you with your thesis or anything but just if you're interested they're talking about unmarried mothers and children out of wedlock on fm104 now.
also, best of luck