Are you a country mouse or a city mouse?
On Monday, the Central Statistics Office published a new report titled “Urban and Rural Life in Ireland 2019” featuring figures on statistical disparities between cities and rural areas in Ireland.
According to the latest data, 31.4% of Irish people live in a rural area — above the EU average of 27.3%.
Perhaps most notably, major age gaps can be seen between populations in cities and highly rural areas.
For example, in cities, just over 40% of the population is between the ages of 20 and 44, whereas in highly rural areas the same group accounts for just 28.2% of the population. In these areas, around 20% of the population is over 60.
Cities had the highest median household disposable income of the six classified areas in 2017 at €46,458, while satellite urban towns had the second highest at €42,709.
Satellite urban towns also had the highest percentage of internet coverage at 85.9%, compared to highly rural areas, where three out of 10 houses didn’t have any internet at all.
One in 10 people living in independent urban towns are living in consistent poverty.
People living in independent urban towns also have the least disposable income, at €17,433. That same group of people also reported the lowest percentage of good health, with 55.2% reporting their health as very good compared to the national average of 59.4%.
Independent urban towns are defined as towns of a population between 5,000 and 50,000, where less than 20 percent of the usually resident employed population’s workplace address is in ‘cities.’
Cities are defined as “towns/settlements with populations greater than 50,000”.
You can explore all the details of the report here.
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