Youth paces Ireland's growth

LAYTOWN, Ireland: Moving to a newly built seaside housing development north of Dublin seemed an obvious decision for Katrina Dooley and her partner.

Fast-rising property prices in central Dublin allowed them to trade their one- bedroom apartment in the city for a three-bedroom, red-brick house within earshot of crashing waves. Key to the couple's calculation was concentrating energy and attention on Ella, 5, their first child.

The problem was that hundreds of other people had the same idea, leaving the local school scrambling for space, to the point of using a basketball court as a classroom.

While many countries in Europe grapple with the difficulties associated with large-scale aging, Ireland and a few other countries face the flip-side problems — and advantages — of an excess of youth.

Crowded schools, a labor crisis in child care and strained infrastructure in new commuter towns like Laytown are some of the burdens faced by Ireland and the other European countries at the young end of the age spectrum.

Relatively low health care costs and a quick transition to a high-tech economy have proved to be some of the blessings.

"'Younger' countries face different pressures from the rest of Europe," said Claude Giorno, an economist in Paris who monitors Spain at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Common themes are things like a shortage of educational facilities and the doubling of housing prices, like we have seen since 1998 in Spain."

Despite the gray-hair image of Europe, the reality is a demographic patchwork.

"Europe is definitely an aging continent, but there are a few pockets of youth," said Antonio Missiroli, chief policy analyst at the European Policy Center in Brussels. In the past, the predominant religion of a country was a strong indicator of birthrates. Government policies are now more important, he said.

Of the four million people in Ireland, 36 percent were under the age of 25 in 2005, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistics office. Ireland's birthrate of 15.3 births per thousand residents in 2004 was the highest in Europe. Other youthful standouts in Western Europe with relatively large populations in their 20s include Spain, Greece and Portugal.

European countries notable for policies that clearly encourage births also include France and Nordic countries, Missiroli said, adding that they have correspondingly high birthrates. Encouraging high birthrates may help individual countries buck the Continent's aging trend, but Ireland shows that even youth-filled countries face their own difficulties.

They might take some lessons from Ireland about what not to do. Property prices have increased in Ireland for more than 53 consecutive quarters, the longest property boom recorded by the OECD. The Irish Central Bank has warned that rising interest rates may provoke a sharp downturn in prices.

In concrete terms, this has brought an explosive growth of pupils at Scoil Oilibheir Naofa, Ella's in Laytown. Four years ago, the entry class had 10 pupils, while this year 183 pupils began school and more than 300 have signed up to begin next year.

The school year started with students sitting down for lessons in a series of temporary buildings — some without electricity.

"The arrival of my daughter should have come as a surprise to nobody," said Dooley, 43, who has joined other parents in pressing for a new school. "I guess you could call the situation part of the national growing pains."

Demographically, the births creating the Irish age bulge peaked 27 years ago, roughly nine months after the 1979 visit to Ireland by Pope John Paul II. The 74,064 births recorded in 1980 marked the largest number of births in Ireland in more than 80 years.

"Ireland hit a perfect demographic storm," said David McWilliams, an economist in Dublin and author of "The Pope's Children: Ireland's New Elite," published in 2005. "The post-pope bulge combined with a booming economy to bring Irish home from overseas and attract even more young people from Poland."

In the 12-month period that ended in April 2006, Ireland reached the highest level of immigration in more than two decades, with a large portion of the 86,900 immigrants coming from Poland and the vast majority below the age of 40, according to the Irish Central Statistics Office. The native population's age has helped immigrants integrate more readily, McWilliams said.

"Since the overall Irish population and the immigrants are both young, there is less of a confrontational attitude," McWilliams said. "Young Irish see young immigrants as a dating opportunity more than the employment threat a 50-year-old would see."