Census shows increase in families in Mayo

Latest figures show 33,628 families are resident in the county

Anton McNulty
 
THE latest Census figures show that the number of families living in Mayo has increased in the last five years but is below the overall national average.
The latest Census 2016 results released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) concentrates on households and families and the report shows that there were 1,218,370 families in the State on Census night, an increase of 3.3 percent since 2011.
The figure for County Mayo shows that 33,628 families are in the county, which constitutes an increase of 468 - or 1.4 percent - on the 2011 figure.
Regarding the marital status of people in the county, the results show that there are less single people in Mayo when compared to the national figure. Of people in Mayo aged 15 or over, 38,872 or 37.4 percent of the county declared themselves as single. The percentage of single people in the State overall is at 41.1 percent.
The number of first time married people was slightly above the national average, with 50,586 or 48.7 percent in Mayo compared to 46 percent nationally.
There were 1,693 remarried persons in the county, with males more likely to remarry after divorce, with 44.1 percent doing so, compared to just 31.9 percent of females.
The number of divorcees increased by 402 to 2,784, and accounted for 2.7 percent of those aged 15 and over. The 6,794 widowed persons comprised 6.5 percent of those aged above 15 years.
For the first time in Census history, the status of same-sex civil partnerships were recorded following the enactment of the civil partnership legislation. In Mayo, there were 66 people in this category, and 4,226 in the State overall.
The number of people living alone increased by 633 to 13,676, or 10.7 percent of all those living in private households. Of these, over four in ten (5,967) were aged 65 and over, with women accounting for 56.3 percent.