Lowest fertility rate – and falling fast

Scotland has the lowest fertility rate in the UK – and it is falling faster in Scotland then elsewhere in Britain.

In 2018, Scotland’s fertility rate – the average number of children born to each mother – was 1.42. This needs to be about 2.1 for the population to replace itself.

It is not clear why Scotland’s is so low, but the slowdown in migration and economic reasons are believed to be factors.

There were 51,308 births registered in Scotland in 2018, which is 1,553 fewer than the previous year and down from a peak of more than 60,000 a decade earlier.

The birth rate now outstrips the death rate in Scotland, which means the country is reliant on migration to keep the population growing. Although this stands at a record high of 5.44 million, the rate of growth is slowing.

Since the mid 1970s there has been a trend towards women having children at older ages, with women in their twenties experiencing a “dramatic fall” in fertility, according to the report.

Women between 20 and 24 accounted for a third of births in the late 1970s, but this had fallen to 14 per cent last year. Mothers aged between 25 and 29 has also fallen from about 35 per cent in the late 1970s to about 27 per cent last year.

As a result, women aged 30 and over accounted for more than half of all births in 2018.

The average age of a mother in Scotland is 30.6, up from 26 in the mid-1970s. The average age of a father is 33.1, which is up from 28.4.