Growth Rate of Irish Population

The CSO released the latest population growth statistics this week. If the population continues to grow at the same linear rate as the last 10 years then we would see the population doubling by 2050. Unlikely I know but it would be interesting to track to see how long this trend continues.

The Red line in Graph 1 is the actual population growth increase from 1999 to 2008 and the Blue line is the extrapolated growth line giving the actual total population in Graph 2.

Happiness Index Revisited

I was talking to someone recently about the Subjective Well Being or Happiness Index of a country (saying that Denmark came out with the highest SWB value) and she pointed out that Denmark had a high suicide rate. So after I bit of investigation I found the following suicide rates for countries I have been comparing up to now. In order to compare my selected countries with that of the highest suicide rate in the world I have added Lithuania into the comparison chart below. So Denmark has a relatively high suicide rate but much less than the highest countries in the world.

In general male suicides outnumber female suicides by a multiple of 3, 4 or 5. For example, in the US males successfully complete suicide at a rate of 4 times that of females. However, females attempt suicide more than 3 times more often than males. Men tend to use firearms and are therefore more successful at suicide whereas women tend to go for an overdose option which often leads to recovery. Here are the comparison charts for men and women.

Looking at the countries with higher suicide rates it tends to be those with colder climates (e.g. Lithuania, Russia, Belarus, Slovenia and Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the US) but I could not find any studies that link cold climates with suicide rates. Surprisingly, most suicides happen in the spring time usually peaking in May and June in the northern hemisphere (November and December in the southern hemisphere).

Spending on Health

The Irish Government is planning to significantly cut back on Health spending. Graph 1 is the trend of spending as a percentage of GDP in a selected list of countries over recent years. We know that the UK, France and Cuba have relatively good health systems mostly sponsored by the state. So how do other counties compare? For example, the USA has a very high % expenditure on health compared to GDP but approximately 55% of the expenditure is made up from private health expenditure on insurance or direct payments and hence the USA Governemnt has a low % contribution from the total expenditure on health (as does Greece surprisingly in this small small sample of countries - see Graph 2).

It looks like Ireland will be going the way of the US where anyone who can afford it will have private health insurance (all the rest will have to make do). All data sourced from the WHO site.

Happiness Index

With all this talk of recession and depression it would be interesting to gauge the well being of a country before the recent economic downturn. There are 2 measures that I found that could be used: the first is called The (un)Happy Planet Index or HPI for short which reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society per unit of planetary resource consumed. Here are some trends since 1961 for a few countries I am interested in comparing (Spain's HPI increased steadily after Franco's death in 1975 but started to decline again after 1985 - so it appears to have been a temporary blip?):

The second index is based on a paper from the University of Leicester in the UK called the Subjective Well Being Index. According to this index Denmark comes out with the best SWB Index in the world; Ireland is 11th; USA 23rd; UK 41st; Spain 46th.

New Blasphemy Law for Ireland

The Irish Government in its wisdom has decided to push through a Blasphemy Law. Who in their right mind in Ireland really wants or needs this? I would urge everyone to join the campaign on blasphemy.ie to urge the powers that be to see some sense. So I visited the CSO site again to see the spread of religious beliefs in Ireland and how it has changed over the last 120 years.

The surprising result is that although the % of Catholics is decreasing slightly the actual number of people declaring themselves to be Catholic is increasing and has never been higher (in the period measured).

So there can be no denying that Ireland is predominantly a Roman Catholic country. But there are other religions represented in the county. Here is the % of the rest as of 2006. The next highest category is those of no religion at 4.2% (175,252).

Age Profile of Irish Population

I'm starting to collate a profile of the Irish population to compare with other countries. The obvious place to go to is the Irish Central Statistics Office site. Very interesting detail here.

For example life expectancy in Ireland is 76.8 for males and 81.6 for females. Life expectancy in the UK is slightly higher for males (77.2) and slightly lower for females (81.5). The USA is slightly lower (75.1 for males; 80.2 for females). If you want to live longer then move to Japan (and I presume adopt their lifestyle) and expect to live until 78.8 for males and 85.62 for females.

Overall the population age profile for Ireland looks like this:



I always suspected that there were slightly more males than females in Ireland (except when men start to get into their 60s and 70s and start dropping off). Here is the proof.

Murder rates in Ireland

There was a horrific murder in Ireland over the weekend which got me thinking how Ireland compares to the rest of the world in this respect.

The good news is that as of 2007 Ireland was the least violent country in Europe (according to the WHO) which compared homicide and assault rates across 27 European countries. The Irish rate, 0.32 killings per 100,000 people, contrasted with that of Finland (1.96) and Scotland (1.75) which topped western Europe's violence blacklist. Malta, with a rate of 0.48, was almost as peaceful as Ireland.

In 2007 the USA had a murder rate of nearly 6 per 100,000 people. Other countries: Mexico has a rate of 13; Russia has a rate of 19.9; South Africa has a rate of 47.5; and Colombia has a frightening rate of 62.7. Maybe Ireland isn't such a bad place to live after all?

However, the good news for the USA is that the murder rate has declined to levels close to that of the early 1960s. See graph below (1960 - 2007) to see that murder rates in the USA peaked at 0ver 10 per 100,000 in 1980 but declined significantly during the '90s. Any one know why? Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have an interesting explanation in their book "Freakonomics" but I know many people are abhorred by the idea.

Prison Incarceration levels in Ireland

This is my first attempt at gathering some comparative data from different countries: relative prison incarceration levels across the world.

I was driving home yesterday listening to Today FM and heard that prisons in the Republic of Ireland are grossly over crowded at the moment and yet some unfortunate people are being incarcerated for non-payment of small fines (as low as €50 according to one contributor). Surely there must be a better way to "punish" people who commit small crimes (e.g. some form of community service)?

So first I looked up what the current prison occupancy rates in Ireland and then started comparing to other counties and this is what I found so far:

• Since 1995 the prison population rate in Ireland has grown from 57 per 100,000 of national population to 78 per 100,000 of national population in 2006. It increased by 11% in 2008 which would roughly bring Ireland up to just under the 86 per 100,000 level.


• In 2005 the average cost of keeping an individual in custody in Ireland for one year was €90,000 and in 2008 this figure had not changed very much at around €92,000.


• In 2008 there was a considerable increase in the numbers committed for non-payment of court fines (88.7% increase growing to 2,520). Based on the €92k figure above the cost to the taxpayer would have been €4.5 million per week.


• Finland has a prison population rate of 75 per 100,000 of national population.


• Germany has a prison population rate of 95 per 100,000 of national population.


• Surprisingly, Canada has a prison population rate of 107 per 100,000 of national population.


• In the UK in 2006 an average of 148 people in every 100,000 were in prison. England and Wales has one of the highest rates of incarceration in Europe.


• But compared to rates in the USA Ireland has a much lower incarceration rate (see graph above)

Taking all this into account Ireland compares well with other countries but we could do a lot better by not sending offenders to prison for petty offences and save some valuable taxpayer money at the same time