Population
The estimated population of Scotland on 30 June 2008 was 5,168,500.
The population of Scotland grew by around 24,300 in the 12 months between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008, an increase of 0.5%.
The increase in the population in the 12 months between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008 was mainly due to:
The age of the population of Scotland was as follows.
Scotland’s population has been fairly stable over the past 50 years. It peaked at 5.24 million in 1974 before falling to 5.05 million in 2002. It then increased in each of the following six years, largely due to migration, to reach 5.17 million in 2008.
Changes in the population vary across Scotland. In the 10 years from 1998 to 2008, the council areas which had the highest population increases and reductions were as follows:
In the 10 years from 1998 to 2008, the ageing of the population was reflected in the number of children under 16 reducing by 9%, and the number of people aged 75 and over increasing by 13%.
Current projections (estimates for future years largely based on past trends) suggest that the population of Scotland will rise to a high of 5.37 million in 2031, before slowly reducing. These estimates also suggest the population will age significantly, with the number of people aged 60 and over expected to increase by 54%, from 1.12 million to 1.72 million.
Migration (moving in and out of the country)
Since the 1950s, more people have tended to leave Scotland than move here. However, since 2002, this has changed.
In the year to 30 June 2008, the number of people moving to Scotland from other parts of the UK, and out of Scotland to other parts of the UK, meant that the population increased by around 11,500 people.
In the year to 30 June 2008, the number of people moving to Scotland from overseas, and out of Scotland to go overseas, meant that the population increased by around 7,700 people.
Most people moving to and from Scotland are young – between 16 and 34. As a result of people moving to and from the rest of the UK, Scotland’s population was boosted for every broad age group. Moves to and from overseas countries provided increases to the numbers of people in every age group up to 35.
Births
There were 60,041 births registered in Scotland in 2008.
The number of births has increased over the past six years, and the total for 2008 was the highest since 1995.
The average age of mothers has increased from 27.4 in 1991 to 29.4 in 2008. Similarly, the average age of fathers has increased from 30.0 in 1991 to 32.3 in 2008.
The percentage of babies born to unmarried couples has been rising steadily for several years. 2008 was the first year this was more than 50% for Scotland as a whole.
87% of mothers who gave birth in 2008 were born in the UK, including 77% who were born in Scotland. 5% of mothers had been born in the European Union (EU), including 3% from the countries which joined the EU in 2004 (such as Poland).
Deaths
There were 55,700 deaths registered in Scotland in 2008.
The number of deaths each year has slowly reduced over the past 30 years. The total for 2008 was the second lowest since 1855 (when civil registration was introduced).
The main causes of deaths were as follows.
The percentage of deaths caused by coronary heart disease has fallen from 29% in 1981 to 16% in 2008, but the percentage of deaths caused by cancer has risen from 22% to 27%.
Death rates from cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke in Scotland are well above the rates for the other countries in the UK.
In 2008, there were 1411 deaths from causes entirely related to alcohol. After a sharp rise in the 1990s, the number of deaths from these causes appears to have levelled off in the last few years.
There were 325 stillbirths and 253 infant deaths in 2008. Death rates for both have improved significantly. The rate of stillbirths has dropped from 13.1 for every 1000 births (live births and stillbirths) in 1971 to 5.4 in 2008. The infant death rate fell from 19.9 for every 1000 live births in 1971 to 4.2 in 2008.
Standardised mortality ratios compare the average death rate in Scotland to those in different areas of Scotland, taking into account differences in age. There are large variations across Scotland, ranging from Glasgow, which has a standardised mortality ratio of 27% higher than the Scottish average, to East Dunbartonshire which is 19% below the Scottish average.
Life expectancy in Scotland has improved greatly over the last 25 years, increasing from 69.1 years for men and 75.4 years for women born around 1981 to 75 years for men and 79.9 years for women born around 2007.
Despite recent improvements, Scottish men and women have poor life expectancy compared to most of the EU – about four years lower for men, and almost five years lower for women, when compared to the countries where life expectancy is highest.
Marriages and civil partnerships
There were 28,903 marriages in Scotland in 2008. This includes 7354 marriages (25%) where neither the bride nor groom lived in Scotland, but does not include people living in Scotland who marry elsewhere.
For first marriages, the average age at which people marry has increased by around two and a half years in the last 10 years, to 32.5 years for men and 30.6 years for women.
Just over half of all marriages (53%) were civil ceremonies, carried out by a registrar – compared to just under one-third (31%) in 1971. Just under half of these civil ceremonies took place in registration offices, with most of them in ‘approved premises’ such as hotels and castles.
Most religious marriages were carried out by Church of Scotland ministers (7007), with clergy from the Roman Catholic Church carrying out 1873 marriages. Celebrants from the Humanist Society of Scotland, authorised to carry out marriages since 2005, officiated at 1026 marriages.
In 2008 there were 525 civil partnerships – 245 male couples and 280 female couples. This is a drop of around 500 compared to 2006, which was the first full year in which civil partnerships could be registered.
Divorces and dissolutions
In 2008, there were 11,474 divorces and 14 dissolutions of civil partnerships (when a civil partnership is ended) in Scotland.
Adoptions
In 2008, there were 418 adoptions recorded in Scotland. The number of adoptions each year has approximately halved since the early 1990s.
Households and housing
In the middle of 2008, there were 2.3 million households in Scotland – around 290,000 more than in 1991.
The number of households has been increasing steadily but this growth has slowed over the last year. Between 2007 and 2008, the increase in the number of households (17,500) was lower than in any other year for the last five years.
By 2031, projections suggest the number of households in Scotland will increase to 2.7 million, which is an average of 17,600 extra households each year.
Most of that expected increase in the number of households is the result of an ageing population, and more people living alone or in smaller households, not an increase in the population.
Across Scotland in 2008, 2.8% of homes were empty and 1.4% were second homes, though there is wide variation across the country. There are more empty homes in more deprived areas, and more second homes in the remote rural areas.
Improving choice in the registration system
The Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 was the first major change in registration law since 1965.
The Act gave people the freedom to register a birth or death in Scotland at any Scottish registration office. Nearly 6000 births and deaths in 2008 (around 5% of the total) were registered in registration offices that would not have been allowed before the Act. This ranged from 31% of registrations in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire to less than 1% in the Orkney and Shetland Islands.
The Act meant that people no longer needed to use their new name for two years before the change could be registered. The number of applications for name changes increased by 48% in the year after the Act.
Events registered abroad (for example, births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships), can now be added to the Book of Scottish Connections – a new register held by the Registrar General for Scotland. By 31 May 2009, nine events had been recorded in the Book of Scottish Connections. These were:
The Act allows the Registrar General for Scotland to provide registration information, already publicly available, to any relevant government organisation. In certain circumstances, we can give information on death registration to other organisations – for example, through the UK-wide Disclosure of Death Registration Information scheme, which aims to reduce identity fraud.
The Act allowed the Registrar General to keep a central register of high-quality information about people, to help efficiently run the NHS and local councils in Scotland. This gave clear legal powers to the National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR), which the Registrar General already ran on behalf of the NHS in Scotland. It also allowed the information on the NHSCR to be used to help run the local councils’ ‘Citizen’s Account’ programme.