Scotland suffered "negative natural change" in its population, as deaths outnumbered births last year. New figures from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed we had a "shortfall" of 15,983 in 2022.
There were 46,959 births and 62,942 deaths across the whole year, including 11,899 births registered in the final three months of last year - which is down by 4.9 per cent when compared to the average for this period over the last five years.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths was 9.3 per cent above the average, with NRS data showing 16,856 deaths were recorded in October to December 2022. Compared to the four-year average for 2016 to 2019, the final quarter of 2022 had 8.7 per cent more deaths from respiratory diseases - with these totalling 1,900.
