Background

1. The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) on behalf of the Registrars General, prepares the population projections for the United Kingdom and its constituent countries. This paper presents the main results of the latest, 2004-based, projection for Scotland, and outlines the fertility, mortality and migration assumptions used in its preparation.

2. The results in this paper concentrate on the period up to 2031, although for the first time GAD are making available projections up to 2074. However, projections this far ahead become increasingly more uncertain the further ahead they go because assumptions are being made, in some cases, about the behaviour of people who have not yet been born. 

3. As well as producing the main 'principal' projection GAD also usually produce 'variant' projections using alternative plausible assumptions. At the time this paper was written (20 October 2005) GAD had published seven variant projections on their website. Additional variants will follow in November 2005. More information on the variant projections is given in section 7.