Scotland’s ageing population will struggle without the help of younger immigrants from other European countries. The Scotland of the future will need more immigrants. This is going to be true regardless whether an independent country or not. Scotland has a workforce which is ageing. Before long, the need to pay for the ever growing numbers no longer working by the efforts of the shrunken proportion still working will become a big social problem.
One answer would be a greater rate of increase in the native population, though it is hard to see how the long-term trend towards smaller families can be halted. Another answer is that emigration could be diminished though that again seems unlikely to happen. Another alternative would be to increase participation in economic activity by people such as young mums or OAPS. The white paper on Scotland’s future proposed a scheme of childcare is presented as a social measure but its real rationale was economic.
These measures, even in combination, would have more than a minor effect on the age-profile of the population and so of the workforce. The only thing that can change that reasonably quickly is immigration. At the turn of the 21st century the population of Scotland was stagnating in the way it had been for most of the 20th century. The total hovered just above five million, but threatened soon to plunge below that level and to carry on down. Only a few years later and we find not just that the population has kept above five million but also that it continues to rise and within a couple of decades is forecast to reach 5.7 million, the highest number that has ever lived in Scotland in the whole of its history. Immigration is what has made the difference. If we needed to rely only on the natural rate of increase, that is, the excess of native births over native deaths, then the population would still be stagnating, if not falling.
Adapted from here
One answer would be a greater rate of increase in the native population, though it is hard to see how the long-term trend towards smaller families can be halted. Another answer is that emigration could be diminished though that again seems unlikely to happen. Another alternative would be to increase participation in economic activity by people such as young mums or OAPS. The white paper on Scotland’s future proposed a scheme of childcare is presented as a social measure but its real rationale was economic.
These measures, even in combination, would have more than a minor effect on the age-profile of the population and so of the workforce. The only thing that can change that reasonably quickly is immigration. At the turn of the 21st century the population of Scotland was stagnating in the way it had been for most of the 20th century. The total hovered just above five million, but threatened soon to plunge below that level and to carry on down. Only a few years later and we find not just that the population has kept above five million but also that it continues to rise and within a couple of decades is forecast to reach 5.7 million, the highest number that has ever lived in Scotland in the whole of its history. Immigration is what has made the difference. If we needed to rely only on the natural rate of increase, that is, the excess of native births over native deaths, then the population would still be stagnating, if not falling.
Adapted from here
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