Sunday, March 23, 2008

Scotland today--

I just found this bit of news from an online paper called "Scottish Snippets."

Scotland's Population at 20-Year High
Figures released by the Registrar General Office for Scotland show that
Scotland's population is at its healthiest level for more than 20 years.
The reason is that there were more children born in 2007 than any year
since 1997, with the fifth consecutive increase in births on the previous
year. But less than half the babies born had mothers who were Scots - the
baby boom is being generated by one in three infants with mothers born in
the Eastern European countries which joined the EU in 2004. The Registrar's
figures also show that the number of marriages fell, and is now nearing its
lowest number since Victorian times when the population was smaller. Some
49.1% of last year's births were to unmarried parents. The provisional
statistics show that there were 57,781 births in Scotland last year.
Despite being the highest in 20 years, that is half the level of the early
1960s. Scotland's population has steadily increased since 2003 when the
population was 5.06 million. In 2006 it had risen to 5.12 million - the
highest since 1985 - and all the signs are that there will be a further
increase in 2007. It's not that long ago that Scotland's falling population
was regarded as "chronic" after two decades of decline. There were
predictions that it would fall to below five million by 2009 and below four
million by 2041.

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