• For every year since 1921, there have been more births than deaths in Northern Ireland.
  • The total fertility rate (TFR) in Northern Ireland for the most recent year where data is available (2022) was much higher than in England, Scotland or Wales and therefore much higher than the UK average.
  • However, the local fertility rate for that year was 1.71 and not 1.81, as per the claim.
  • Unfortunately, this is an easy mistake to make. Read our check to find out why searching for “Northern Ireland’s current fertility rate” does not necessarily lead you to Northern Ireland’s current fertility rate.

In an article for the Belfast Telegraph published on 5 September, journalist John Laverty claimed that:

“[For] every year of its existence, Northern Ireland has seen more births than deaths – and that includes World War Two, the Troubles and the pandemic… Indeed, the most up-to-date fertility rate here is 1.81 children per woman [which is] comfortably ahead of the UK average of 1.55.”

This claim can be broken up into three elements::

  • For every year since 1921, Northern Ireland has seen more births than deaths
  • NI’s fertility rate is significantly higher than the UK average.
  • By the most recent calculations, the fertility rate for NI is 1.81, compared with a UK figure of 1.55.

The first two are supported by evidence.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency publishes data on total births and deaths registered here annually. This indicates that, in every year since its foundation, NI has seen more births than deaths.

Figures published by Health and Social Care NI (HSC) indicate that the local fertility rate is much higher than in England, Scotland or Wales.

The third aspect is not quite right. According to the most recent figures from HSC – published in May this year, but covering 2022 – NI’s fertility rate is 1.71, not 1.81.

However, it would appear that the author has made an honest mistake that could be made by anyone – read to the very end for a cautionary tale about the modern-day internet.

  • Sources

FactCheckNI contacted Mr Laverty about his claim. He helpfully pointed us in the direction of various sources of information.

Regarding annual numbers of births and deaths, he sent us data tables from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, and also made reference to an annual report from the NI Registrar General (the most recent such report is here).

As evidence for fertility rates, he sent a link to figures held by Statista, an online portal for data aggregation and analysis, which said that: “In 2021, the total fertility rate of Northern Ireland was 1.81”.

Let’s take a closer look.

  • Births since birth

Northern Ireland came into being in 1921. How have the numbers of births and deaths per year compared since then? NISRA publishes a wide range of registrar information (births, deaths and marriages) for Northern Ireland.

Data from there shows the number of births and the number of deaths annually in Northern Ireland (and the six counties that would become Northern Ireland) since 1887.

For each and every year, the number of births exceeds the number of deaths – which supports that part of the claim. This is illustrated in the chart below:

Figure 1 – Annual births and deaths in Northern Ireland 1921-2022 (source: NISRA)

The narrowest gap between annual births and deaths in Northern Ireland was 2020; indeed, the three years with the narrowest gap between the numbers of births and deaths are the three most recent years with data available (2020, 2021 and 2022). This period coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Fertility rates

Health and Social Care NI (HSC) publishes annual reports with data on child health that includes figures about fertility rates. The most recent report, published in May of this year, was Children’s Health in Northern Ireland 2022/23. As per that report, the total fertility rate (TFR) across the UK is defined as:

“The average number of live children that a group of women would bear if they experienced the age-specific fertility rates of the calendar year in question throughout their childbearing lifespan.”

For the most recent year available (2022), the TFR in Northern Ireland was 1.71 – not 1.81, as claimed in the article.

The HSC report also has 2022 fertility rates for England (1.55), Wales (1.50) and Scotland (1.33) but none for the UK overall.

While the author appears to have made an error in the specific figure he quoted, nonetheless he is accurate with his point that NI’s fertility rate is comfortably ahead of the UK average, given that NI is a small fraction of the UK and the fertility rate here is much higher than in the other three countries..

  • Errors, adjustments, easy mistakes to make

As previously stated, the journalist shared the sources of information with FactCheckNI. He was quoting fertility rate figures published by Statista, an online service that collates data from around the world and presents it in one place.

However, the information he quoted is out of date, and involved data from 2021, when NI fertility rate was indeed calculated at 1.81 – a figure found in HSC’s Children’s Health in Northern Ireland 2021/22, published in May 2023.

The Belfast Telegraph article explicitly says that it is quoting the “most up-to-date” figures, which isn’t accurate.

As a further wrinkle, it’s worth noting that the latest HSC report (for 2022-23, published in May 2024) states that last year’s NI fertility rate was 1.79, which is again different from the 1.81 quoted in his article. However, this is a revised figure by Health and Social Care.

Many statistics can be adjusted down the line based on new analyses. This is not unusual and quite clearly a revision was made here, between publication of the NI children’s health reports in 2021-22 and 2022-23, because the two figures are different (1.81 and 1.79).

So, Mr Laverty has used slightly out-of-date data. That is an error – albeit it didn’t undermine his point that NI has a significantly higher fertility rate than the other three counties in the UK – but, while that concludes the fact check, it’s not the end of the story.

In fact, here lies a cautionary tale for anyone using today’s internet.

  • Source searching

As previously mentioned, Statista is a reputable service offering statistical aggregation and analysis. The key word here is aggregation. Statista gathers information from proper sources and puts them all in one place. Describing its own services, it says:

“Statista.com consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources.”

This means – despite being a useful tool – Statista is not a primary source and can be susceptible to some delays and/or gaps in data.

Whatever the reasons are in this case, the result is this: when FactCheckNI googled “northern ireland fertility rates” just this week, the information used in the Belfast Telegraph is the top result (and no data that is more up-to-date is in sight).

Figure 2 – source: a popular search engine

FactCheckNI also searched for:

  • “northern ireland current fertility rate”
  • “northern ireland latest fertility rate”
  • “northern Ireland up-to-date fertility rate”

Each returned the same top result.

One can be forgiven for thinking that searching “northern ireland current fertility rate” will lead you to Northern Ireland’s current fertility rate. Unfortunately, that’s not how the internet works.

Between Statista’s own work in aggregation, its search engine optimisation, and Google’s new approach to the internet (where an individual can search a question and Google will often respond with a summary answer at the top of the page, based on its own aggregation of data), there are lots of ways that information quality may be, to put it kindly, diluted.
This is the new internet, and this is a new warning for all readers (not just journalists). We are all consumers of information. Watch what you eat.