High fertility, high emigration, low nuptiality: adjustment processes in Scotland's demographic experience, 1861-1914, Part I.

Abstract

This paper, which is published in two parts, explores the interrelationships between nuptiality, marital fertility, and migration in Scotland during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Part I the pervasiveness and persistence of the differences between demographic experiences in Scotland and England is explored. Though overall fertility was roughly the same, across most of the country nuptiality was significantly lower in Scotland than in England, and marital fertility was markedly higher. Population growth in Scotland was slower mainly because loss of population through migration was so widespread. Within Scotland, regional contrasts were very apparent and these are shown at parish level by maps of population change for 1861–1911, of population loss through migration for 1861–1871, and of I m and I g for years centred on 1881, 1901, and 1911. In Part II of the paper (to be published in the next issue), explanations are offered for these regional differences and also for the marked contrasts between the demographic experiences of England and Scotland in this period.