Figures show things are on the up for the few, but not for everyone

The least popular birthdays in Ireland are in the three days from Christmas Eve to St Stephen’s Day (apart from the odd few born in a leap year).

That means, of course, that more babies are conceived in January than at other times of the year. Why is that, I wonder? The after effects of Christmas?

The cold weather, and the shorter days? Is there really nothing at all on the telly in January?

It used to be the case in Ireland that the most popular birthdays occurred in February and March — because that was how to maximise the tax benefits of having a child.

That meant more babies were conceived in the summer. But we’ve changed our habits pretty significantly since then.

Funny how the abolition of a tax benefit can have such a profound change isn’t it? Now, it seems, we prefer to conceive our babies in the dead of winter!

Of course, that’s not the most important statistic gathered by the CSO. But nearly everything they do tells us something about ourselves — as with most statistics, it’s up to us to figure out the real meaning of them.

The Hyundai Tucson, for example, was the most popular new car in Ireland last year. Could it really be the case that people were seduced by their awful radio ads?

How come it managed to beat the VW Golf into top spot? And for that matter, how come sales of the VW don’t appear to be affected at al by all the scandal whirring around the company?

And according to the table, the 5 Series BMW and the E-Class Mercedes sold as many between them as the Ford Fiesta.

What does that tell us about our tastes and culture? Maybe the fact that black and grey cars outsold all the others put together tells us that even if we’ve got our taste for new cars back again, we’ve stopped (for now, anyway) wanting to show off.

The international comparisons are just as fascinating. We’re well up the European leagues when it comes to access to the internet — and internet shopping and banking — but we’re down near the bottom when it comes to patents and investment in research and development.

All this talk of us becoming the e-commerce hub of the world is not matched by performance, it would seem.

But thankfully, the CSO tells us that the floodgates never opened in Ireland.

We’re still getting married with the best of them, and our divorce rate remains the lowest in Europe — despite life expectancy for men and women being well up to the European average.

Maybe it’s because more men and women than the average still live at home with their parents.

Statistics are figures of course, not human stories. But some are so stark that they imprint themselves on your mind.

One of the most recent releases of the CSO concerns the value of higher education, for instance. Three-quarters of the 2104 graduates are in substantial employment — that means they have started long-term careers — within a year of graduating.

That’s up from two-thirds in just a few years.

Opportunity doesn’t necessarily mean equality. In the first year after graduation, median weekly earnings were equal for men and women at €420 per week.

However, after five years, median weekly earnings for men, at €655 per week, were €20 above the figure of €635 per week for women.

That gap exists right across the economy. Across all employments, the average for male employees in the most recent year available from the CSO is €759 a week, and for

female employees it’s a lot less — €578.

Whether our economy grows or shrinks, inequality among the sexes remains the same.

But where the CSO is most revealing, if we choose to look, is in what it tells us about people who struggle.

Carers, for instance. The number of carers in Ireland is on the increase, and far more of them are women than men.

There is even an astonishing number of children in the most recent census — 3,800 under the age of 15 — recorded as carers. Between them all, they provide an amazing 6,608,515 hours of unpaid care. It’s not just unpaid, it’s almost entirely unrecognised.

Without that care, the cost to the State of providing supports to elderly and disabled people would treble.

But we are all enabled to turn a blind eye by virtue of the fact that nearly 200,000 of our fellow citizens devote a significant proportion of their lives simply caring for others.

And the “others” include, most significantly, people with a disability. The CSO tells us that one in seven of us has a disability and that one in five of all the people with a disability live alone. 14% of people with a disability never achieve higher than their primary certs, and of course the rate of unemployment among people with a disability is more than twice the rest of the population.

The CSO is examining the possibility of re-analysing all these statistics to produce a detailed set of well-being indicators for the entire country. Their first stab at it tells us that incomes are rising, debt is falling, and fewer of us are out of work (apart from people with a

disability). But it also tells us that job instability is on the increase, as is the number of people who have been discriminated against in the workplace.

The education indicators are broadly positive, but in the area of housing the most stark statistic is the number of homeless people — the steepest increase among all the

indicators gathered by the CSO. When it comes to health, we’re declaring ourselves healthy, but obesity is rising sharply, and so is binge drinking. The number of deaths by suicide shows a disturbingly upward trend.

We’re doing ok in respect of the environment, but consistent poverty throughout the country remains stubbornly high, and the CSO is showing a sharp increase in income inequality.

The bottom line, of course, is that it’s a mixed bag. We’ve made a lot of political choices over the years, and the result has been — and the figures show it — that if you always did well, you’re doing even better now. But if you struggled as a result of inequality or disadvantage in the past, that struggle hasn’t eased at all.

All the indicators show that things are getting better — but when the fruits of economic growth is so unevenly divided, they’re getting better for the few, and not for everyone. Until we get that right, the wellbeing of the nation will never be what it ought to be.