Impact of Scotland’s ageing population

The causes and impact of Scotland’s ageing population are revealed in a new report from National Records of Scotland.

Scotland’s Population is an annual summary from the Registrar General and is Alison Byrne’s first in the role.

This edition focuses on data released this year from Scotland’s Census 2022.

Scotland now has more than a million people aged 65 and over while there are fewer than 750,000 people aged under 15.

The shift towards starting families later and having fewer children means Scotland’s total fertility rate is at its lowest point ever at 1.3. This is well below the level at which the population would replace itself. Additionally deaths outnumber births by the largest margin ever. There were 17,510 more deaths than births in 2023.

Despite this Scotland’s population is at its highest ever due to immigration from within the UK and internationally. Without immigration the population would have contracted. It’s particularly important in younger working age people. While 10.2% of all people in Scotland were born outside the UK, 17.8% of those aged 20 to 39 were born outside the UK. Using a new feature of the census website – the Flexible Table Builder – the report is able to show that, 59.1% of this group had a degree level qualification or higher and that 29.5% were students.

NRS Chief Executive and Registrar General, Alison Byrne, said:

“The data in this report tell us who we are as a nation and they tell us where we are going.

“A big trigger for the changes are the babies born in the booms of the 1940s and 1960s. In their lifetimes they’ve seen a lot of cultural change including the move to smaller families.

“As these changes take place in a population its needs change profoundly. Data lets us understand this and creates opportunities to plan.”

The report shows there have been changes to the leading causes of death in Scotland. With fewer people dying of coronary heart disease and cancer at younger ages, more people live to older ages. While at the turn of the century Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease was the sixth most common cause of death, today it’s the second.  

Change is also felt at local level. Most people moving to Scotland arrive in the cities for work or study. Some local authority areas in the west and south west saw their populations fall from 2011 to 2022 as a result of deaths outnumbering births. The report notes that the fall is not down to people moving from the west to the east.

The ageing population is increasing the number of people living alone. Scotland’s Census 2022 data show this had risen by 5.8% since 2011.

The increase in older people has also led to a rise in the percentage of people owning their home outright. Census data show this rose by almost six percentage points to 33.9% of households.

Notes

• “Scotland’s Population 2023”, also known as The Registrar General’s Annual Review of Demographic trends is available on the NRS website.
• The Flexible Table Builder will initially include data down to electoral ward level. You won’t see data for smaller geographies or the sexual orientation and trans status or history variables in the FTB at this stage. We will publish this data in 2025 after we have completed our Statistical Disclosure Control process. 
• We have published further information on the Jewish and Sikh populations in Scotland. This includes data from both the ethnic group and religion questions. We plan to add variables to the Flexible Table Builder in 2025 that will allow users to work with the more broadly defined Jewish and Sikh populations.  
• The Scottish Government has published analysis of UK Armed Forces veterans based on the new census data. The analysis looks at the characteristics of UK Armed Forces veterans including ethnicity, religion, country of birth and disability.