Europeans today - A place of change

THOUGH the result of the presidential election and yesterday’s two referenda will say a lot about what kind of a country this is and what kind of values we cherish, there are other ways to define a society.

Yesterday research into how Europeans, even the Irish ones, live their lives was published.

We have one of the highest rates in Europe of children living in single-parent households and though the old sanction rooted in religious autocracy has disappeared, it has been replaced by some concern that many parents and so many children — one in four — are facing today’s challenges with less support than is optimal.

On a day after two referenda, new divorce figures put the bitterness and hysteria of our own divorce referendum into context. Marriage rates fell last year, down from 21,541 to 20,635, as did the number of divorces, down from 3,341 to 3,113. Once again passion is seen as a poor substitute for logic in assessing these matters.