The gaps in earnings, economic prosperity and nearly every measure of people’s health and wellbeing between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are widening every year, according to new research.
Disposable income in the Republic was 36 per cent higher than in Northern Ireland in 2022 on the back of substantially higher wages, the report, Comparative Analysis of Economies of Ireland and Northern Ireland, from think tank, the Economic and Social Research Institute shows.
The income gaps are “certainly worrying” for Northern Ireland, since there is a now a 40 per cent gulf because productivity in the Republic has grown by 0.2 per cent annually since 2000, but has fallen by 1.1 per cent a year in Northern Ireland.
The study also found that hospital treatment delays were similar on both sides of the Border for those up to six months on waiting lists, but they worsen dramatically and quickly thereafter.
Eighty-six in every 1,000 people in Northern Ireland have been left waiting for hospital procedures for more than 18 months, compared to just 12 per 1,000 people in the Republic, according to the analysis.
The report finds that infant mortality is rising in Northern Ireland, even though rates in both jurisdictions were equal in 2009. Today, the rate in the Republic stands at 2.8, compared with 4.8 in Northern Ireland.
Life expectancy in Northern Ireland is worse, too. In 2000, life expectancy in the Republic was about one year lower than that in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, but they had converged by 2006.
Today, a child born in 2021 in the Republic can expect to live for 82.4 years compared to 80.4 years in Northern Ireland and an average across the United Kingdom of 80.7 years.
The creation of the “relatively rapid” gap in life expectancy “largely reflects a growing divergence in key issues”, such as living standards, education and healthcare, the report goes on.
The number of children leaving school early in Northern Ireland is “two to three times” the number in the Republic, while just a tenth earn postsecondary level qualifications, compared with nearly a third in the Republic.
Nearly a third of all Northern Ireland’s young people aged between 15 and 19 are not enrolled in education – a finding which the report, funded by the Irish Government’s Shared Island Unit, found to be “alarming”.
Early school leaving “continued to fall” in the Republic between 2018 and 2002 from 5 per cent to 2.7 per cent, despite the difficulties caused for some students by the Covid pandemic, yet the number in Northern Ireland rose from 9.4 to 10 per cent.
