It is a great pleasure to introduce my first annual report as Registrar General. Following the merger that formed the National Records of Scotland, it was logical to combine the roles of Registrar General and Keeper of the Records. This is not the first time this has happened. When statutory registration was introduced in 1855 the then Deputy Clerk Register also became the first Registrar General.
Scotland’s population has reached an all-time high. We estimate that on 30 June 2011 it was 5,254,800 (based on the 2001 census), an increase of 0.6% on the previous year. This continues the trend of recent years and is partly because there were more births than deaths, but mainly because more people moved to Scotland than left.
But the picture is more complex than simply a continuing upward trend. First, the increase was felt in different ways across the country. Areas like Perth & Kinross and Edinburgh saw increases of 10% or more over the last 10 years, while others saw their population reducing. Second, the population continued to age so that the number of people aged 65 and over is now the same as the number of those under 16. The number of households is also increasing, partly as a result of the ageing population and also because more people are living alone or in smaller family groups.
We expect the population to go on rising to 5.76 million by 2035, and to age significantly, with the number of people aged 65 or over rising by 63% in the same period. We also expect the number of households to rise from 2.37 million today, to 2.89 million by 2035. This represents a major change over the coming years, which is deeply significant for policy makers.
In 2011 there was a slight drop in the number of births, to 58,590, which is 0.3% fewer than in 2010. The average age of parents increased again, and is now 29.7 for mothers and 32.4 for fathers. Just over a half of babies were born to unmarried parents, but the majority of those were registered in the name of both parents. Among mothers giving birth here, 86% of those mothers were born in the UK, including 76% born in Scotland.
The number of deaths dropped by 0.6% to reach 53,661, the lowest annual total since registration began in 1855. The four main causes of death were cancer (29% of deaths), coronary heart disease (14% of deaths), diseases of the respiratory system (13% of deaths) and strokes (9% of deaths). Death rates in Scotland from cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke are well above those for the rest of the UK. Life expectancy in Scotland has improved significantly in the past 25 years. People born today can expect to live to 80.6 for women and 76.1 for men. However, these figures are still well below most of the other EU countries.
Migration (people moving to and from Scotland) accounted for the biggest part of Scotland’s population increase, with 28,300 more people coming here than leaving. In 2011, 43,700 people came to Scotland from the rest of the UK and 42,300 came from overseas. In the same period, 40,800 people left Scotland for other parts of the UK and 16,900 went abroad. Most of the people moving to and from Scotland were in the 16 to 34 age group. The highest proportion of people moving to Scotland moved to the east, to Perth & Kinross, Edinburgh and East Lothian. The highest proportion of people leaving was from the west, from West Dunbartonshire, East Dunbartonshire and Inverclyde.
There were 29,135 marriages registered in Scotland last year. Tourist marriages, where neither bride nor groom lived in Scotland, remain popular, accounting for nearly a quarter of these (23%). Gretna remained the most popular location for tourist marriages. Over half of marriages in Scotland last year were civil ceremonies by a registrar, compared with less than a third in 1971. There were 554 civil partnerships last year. Of the couples registering civil partnerships, rather more were female than male, with 327 female couples and 227 male couples.
We continue to process the results of the 2011 census and we will start to publish these towards the end of the year. Our timetable is different from England and Wales because we used a different methodology. We relied heavily on our 6,000 enumerators to hand-deliver and collect forms and to make follow-up visits to households. We are also, for the first time, carrying out the statistical processing ourselves, while working closely with colleagues in the Office of National Statistics to make sure our results are compatible. This approach was based on a careful assessment of Scottish conditions and needs, in consultation with our users. It means that we will have very high-quality statistics which are valuable for policy makers and researchers.
The census provides the most accurate view of the population at a fixed time, and is the base for our annual estimates. However, it is an expensive and lengthy process and we are actively looking at alternatives in the light of work at UK and international level. This report includes a chapter from an expert in this area, David Martin from the University of Southampton, who sets out some of the alternatives.
This report also includes, for the first time, a report on the registration system which has been used since 1855. Today a network of around 700 local-authority registrars across the country record births, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths, and provide around 150,000 records each year to the central databases in Edinburgh. These records are one of the main sources of our annual calculations and underlie all the statistics in this report.
As well as being my first report as Registrar General, this will also be my last as I intend to retire in the autumn of 2012. I would like to thank all the staff of the National Records of Scotland for their exceptional expertise, energy and effort in the past year, all of which is reflected in this report.