National Records of Scotland

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Births, deaths and other vital events - first quarter 2015

Births, deaths and other vital events - first quarter 2015

Wednesday, 10 Jun 2015
Demography News Release Image

Provisional figures for births, deaths and other vital events registered during the first quarter of 2015 are published today by the National Records of Scotland.

The statistics show that 16,521 deaths were registered in the first quarter of the year – 2,562 (18.4 per cent) more than in the same period of 2014. The main drivers of the increase were deaths from respiratory diseases and circulatory diseases. This was the highest number of first quarter deaths since 2000 although levels remain substantially lower than those seen in the 1980s. 

There were 462 same-sex marriages between 1 January and 31 March 2015 - the first full quarter since the Marriage and Civil Partnerships (Scotland) Act 2014 came into force in December 2014.

The provisional figures also show that:

  • 13,320 births were registered in Scotland in quarter one – 610 (4.4 per cent) less than in the same period of 2014. The total number of births for the first quarter fell to a low of  around 12,400 in 2002. It then rose to around 15,100 in 2008 before falling more gradually to the current level of around 13,300 in 2015. 
  • There were 3,889 marriages in total, 340 more than the figure for the first quarter of 2014 (a rise of 9.6 per cent).  
  • There were 20 civil partnerships (12 male and 8 female), 57 fewer than during the first quarter of 2014. 
  • Compared with the same period in 2014, the number of deaths from coronary heart disease rose by 12.4 per cent to 2,008, deaths from stroke increased by 20.2 per cent to 1,317, and there were 4,072 deaths from cancer (an increase of 4.2 per cent).

The full publication, Births, deaths and other vital events - quarterly figures, is available on this website.

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