Links & Readings

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In recent years, government departments have produced a wealth of statistics, which come with great graphics and with exemplary accounts. The key ones relating to the material in this chapter are:

National Records of Scotland Scotland’s Population: The Registrar General’s Annual Reviews of Demographic Trendshttp://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/stats-at-a-glance/registrar-generals-annual-review/2014/. This chapter uses the 2014 report. The 2015 report is now available, and comes in pdf format (http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/rgar/2015/rgar-2015-corrected.pdf ) as well as an infographic report  (http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/stats-at-a-glance/infographics-and-visualisations#rgar-2015).

The reports often come with guest chapters (see http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/stats-at-a-glance/registrar-generals-annual-review/invited-chapters). Michael Anderson’s chapter ‘Migrants in Scotland’s population histories since 1850’ (in the 2015 NRS report) is well worth reading (http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/rgar-invited-chapter/rgar-2015-invited-chapter-corrected.pdf).

There is useful historical material in Tom Devine and Jenny Wormald’s edited book The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (2012), in particular, the chapters by Michael Anderson (‘The Demographic Factor’), Christopher Smout (‘Land and Sea: the Environment’) and Tom Devine (‘A Global Diaspora’).