Births and Deaths: Days until Registration

All the statistics of vital events (e.g. births, marriages and deaths) that National Records of Scotland (NRS) routinely publishes are based on the date on which the event was registered, rather than the date on which the event occurred. Inevitably, of course, there may be several days between the occurrence of an event and its registration.

Key Points (PDF 171 KB)

Detailed Information about the Statistics

More information about the statistics of the number of days until registration (PDF 128 KB)

Excluding cases for which there were apparently very long delays in registration, because they may be due to errors in the statistical data or very unusual circumstances (PDF 172 KB)

Arrangements which apply for 2017 onwards: avoiding double-counting births which are re-registered (PDF 170 KB)

Tables and Charts

Table 1 – Births registered in each calendar year from 1974 to 2017: number of days between the dates of the birth and of the registration of the birth.
(Excel    CSV)

Table 2 -  Deaths registered in each calendar year from 1974 to 2017: number of days between the dates of the death and of the registration of the death.
(Excel    CSV)

Chart 1 – Births registered in 2017: cumulative percentage by number of days since occurred
(Excel    CSV)

Chart 2 – Deaths registered in 2017: cumulative percentage by number of days since occurred
(Excel    CSV)

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Enquiries and Suggestions

Data relating to the actual dates of events can be extracted from the information which is held in NRS’s statistical database, and there are circumstances in which one should consider using such data (e.g. for a study of the number of events which occurred in a short time period).

Please contact our Statistics Customer Services if you need any further information.
E-mail: [email protected]

If you have comments or suggestions that would help us improve our outputs or our standards of service contact:

Alan Ferrier, Senior Statistician, National Records of Scotland,
Room 1/2/12, Ladywell House, Ladywell Road, Edinburgh. EH12 7TF.
Telephone: (0131) 314 4530
E-mail: [email protected]