Miriam O’Callaghan is one of five siblings and has eight children of her own, but she doesn’t think it’s a learned behaviour to want to have a big family.

In fact, she thinks she’s an ‘outlier’. Speaking to EVOKE ahead of her new RTÉ docuseries Ireland’s Population Crash, the 66-year-old admitted: ‘I even read sometimes about this TV presenter who’s got a good job, and she has eight kids.

‘I go, “She must be mad”, and then I realise it’s me.’

‘None of my friends have any more than maybe two or three children; that is their max, and that was the norm,’ Miriam told us. ‘And I don’t think any of my children will be having eight children. I really don’t think that.

‘In generations gone by, women didn’t have any choice. There was no contraception, and you had to have as many children as you were having.

‘[Now], it’s about choice for women. I think it would be a sad world if we ended up like South Korea. We ended up going there [for the docuseries] because they had the lowest fertility rate on the planet.’

‘No babies are being born, and it’s because young Korean women explained to me that they have a choice now, and their choice is not to have babies.’

Little do many of us know that Ireland is on the brink of a population crash, with collapsing birth rates and the fastest aging population in Europe. It’s estimated that by 2050, one in four Irish people will be over the age of 65.

‘I often think women come under so much pressure from every angle, right?,’ Miriam said. ‘I think the problem is that all the evidence shows that the more educated we as women become, and the more successful we become, women are just making choices.’

‘And one of the choices they’re making is that they don’t want to have children. And that’s multifaceted,’ she continued.

‘It’s partly because it’s expensive to have a child. You need a house, and so many young people don’t have a house yet. So you’re not going to be thinking about having a baby if you haven’t even got a house, right?’

‘Also, it’s incredibly expensive to have a child, and it always was expensive. Childcare is expensive, and I think a lot of women and couples are just saying, ” No, it’s not for us.”‘

As part of her research, Miriam attended a singles run club, and her heart was warmed by the realisation that everyone’s looking for love, at the end of the day. But ‘looking for love’ no longer means they’re ready to settle down with a mortgage, pets, a ring, and a baby.

‘If you’re a woman, and you’re really successful, you also don’t prioritise things like your love life. You’re not thinking about a baby. You’re thinking about climbing up the career ladder.

Ireland’s Population Crash will air at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Wednesday, November 4 and 11.