Third Quarter 2017

This release presents provisional figures for vital events which were registered in Scotland in the period from 1 July 2017 to 30 September 2017, inclusive. The tables and chart (available below) provide statistics of births, stillbirths, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths, including:

• quarterly figures for Scotland for each of the past ten years;

• the totals for each Local Authority and NHS Board area for the latest quarter; and
• more detailed analyses of the numbers of deaths (for example cross-classified by sex, cause and NHS Board area) for the latest quarter.

 Main Points

• The statistics show 13,847 births, 13,185 deaths and 10,870 marriages were registered between April and June.
• At 13,847, the number of births registered was 411 (2.9 per cent) fewer than in the same period of 2016 and the lowest quarter three total since 2004. The total number of quarter three births fell to a low of  around 13,200 in 2001. It then rose to around 15,500 in 2008 before falling in more recent years.
• At 13,185, the number of deaths registered was 17 (0.1 per cent) fewer than in the same period of 2016. Over the past decade the number of deaths in the third quarter has generally increased each year apart from an unusually low figure of 12,224 in 2013.
• Compared with the third quarter of 2016:
• the number of deaths from coronary heart disease rose by 4.1 per cent to 1,533;
• Deaths from cerebrovascular disease fell by 6.6 per cent to 900;
• There were 3,960 deaths from cancer (a decrease of 0.6 per cent);
• Deaths from respiratory system diseases fell by 8.5 per cent  to 1,293;
• There was an increase of 6.7 per cent in the number of deaths from Alzheimer’s Disease (491);
• The number of deaths from dementia rose by 13.6 per cent to 861 (although respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia deaths are affected by the change in cause of death coding software – refer to this paper for more details [1].)
• Over the longer term, deaths from coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease have decreased considerably whilst the number of deaths from cancer and respiratory disease has risen slightly.  There has been a relatively large increase in the number of deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with such deaths now accounting for around 10 per cent of all deaths compared to 5 per cent a decade ago.
• The provisional figures also show there were 10,870 marriages in total, 429 fewer than during the third quarter of 2016 (a fall of 3.8 per cent).
• There were 369 same-sex marriages, a rise of 16 (4.5 per cent) compared with the same period of 2016. Thirty-five (9.5 per cent) of the same sex marriages registered in the third quarter were changes from civil partnerships.
• There were 27 civil partnerships (17 male and 10 female),  two more than during the third quarter of 2016.

 Statistical Service in Scotland [2]

Tables and Chart

The tables and chart below have been made available as Excel spreadsheets and can be viewed in Comma Separated Value (CSV) or Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF).

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Commentary

More detailed commentary on the final Vital Events statistics for calendar years as a whole (including some comparisons of the figures for different years, for parts of Scotland and for some other countries) can be found in the following areas of our website:

• the relevant chapters of Scotland's Population - the Registrar General's Annual Review of Demographic Trends [26]; and
• the High Level Summary of Statistics [27] pages on Births and Deaths.

 Note

This is a quarterly publication. The dates of future publications will be announced in our Future Publications [28] page.

Enquiries and Suggestions

For our contact details please see the publication home page [29].