A report examined predicted demographic trends in Scotland and the potential implications for Scottish independence. It said that by 2037 the working age population was expected to reduce by 3.5 per cent, and that Scotland would need to support longer working lives and address disability-free life expectancy levels for males in Scotland, which were four years shorter than the United Kingdom as a whole. The report said that the dependency ratio (the ratio of non-working age people to working age) would rise by 40 per cent in Scotland (compared with 30 per cent in the UK) at the same time as oil and gas revenues were anticipated to fall, and that this was likely to place pressures on government spending and taxation.
Source: Ben Franklin, Scottish Independence: Charting the implications of demographic change, International Longevity Centre – UK
Links: Report | ILC press release
Date: 2014-May
A report examined Scottish public opinion about immigration to Scotland. Drawing on data from a commissioned survey of households in England, Scotland, and Wales, it said that overall attitudes to immigration in Scotland were less negative than in the rest of Britain, that public opinion differentiated between types of immigrants, and that the results showed a complex relationship between immigration attitudes and constitutional issues.
Source: Immigration and Independence: Public opinion on immigration in Scotland in the context of the referendum debate, Migration Observatory (University of Oxford)
Date: 2014-Feb
An article examined mortality inequality within Great Britain, comparing England and Wales with Scotland for the period 1925-2005. Inequalities in mortality had became more apparent over time, and affected young Scottish men most severely after 1995. It said that something dramatic appeared to have happened to the Scottish population in the early 1970s that had accelerated these differentials.
Source: Malcolm Campbell, Dimitris Ballas, Daniel Dorling, and Richard Mitchell, 'Mortality inequalities: Scotland versus England and Wales', Health and Place, Volume 20
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Feb
