In 2020/22, life expectancy at birth in Scotland was 80.73 years for women and 76.52 years for men. For people aged 65 in Scotland life expectancy was 19.61 years for women and 17.29 years for men.

National Records of Scotland Guidance;What is ‘period’ life expectancyAll of the estimates presented in this report are ‘period’ life expectancy. They are calculated assuming that mortality rates for each age group in the time period (here 2021-2023) are constant throughout a person’s life. Period life expectancy is often described as how long a baby born now could expect to live if they experienced today’s mortality rates throughout their lifetime. It is very unlikely that this would be the case as it means that future changes in things such as medicine and legislation are not taken into consideration.Period life expectancy is not an accurate prediction of how long a person born today will actually live, but it is a useful measure of population health at a point in time and is most useful for comparing trends over time, between areas of a country and with other countries.How national life expectancy is calculatedThe latest life expectancy figures are calculated from the mid-year population estimates for Scotland and the number of deaths registered in Scotland during 2021, 2022, and 2023. Life expectancy for Scotland is calculated for each year of age and represents the average number of years that someone of that age could expect to live if death rates for each age group remained constant over their lifetime. Life expectancy in Scotland is calculated as a three-year average, produced by combining deaths and population data for the three-year period. Three years of data are needed to provide large enough numbers to make these figures accurate and lessen the effect of very ‘good’ or ‘bad’ years. Throughout this publication, the latest life expectancy figures refer to 2021-2023 period. How sub-national life expectancy is calculatedWe calculate life expectancy for areas within Scotland using a very similar method to the national figures but with a few key differences. Firstly, we use age groups rather than single year of age. This is to increase the population size of each age group to reduce fluctuations and ensure accurate calculation of mortality rates. Secondly, we use a maximum age group of 90+ whereas the national figures are calculated up to age 100. These are known as ‘abridged life tables.’ Because these methods produce slightly different figures, we also calculate a Scotland figure using the abridged method to allow for accurate comparisons between local areas for example. This Scotland figure is only for comparison and does not replace the headline national figure. You can read more information about the methods in this publication in our methodology guide on the NRS website. Uses of life expectancyLife expectancy at birth is a very useful indicator of mortality conditions across a population at a particular point in time. It also provides an objective means of comparing trends in mortality over time, between areas of a country and with other countries. This is used to monitor and investigate health inequalities and to set public health targets. Life expectancy is also used to inform pensions policy, research and teaching.

Male life expectancy at birth fell in all four countries of the United Kingdom in 2020-22 when compared with 2019/21. English men had a life expectancy of 78.83, compared with 76.52 in Scotland, 77.93 in Wales and 78.43 in Northern Ireland. In both England and Wales, life expectancy ticked up for the period 2021/23.

Period and Cohort Mortality rates (qx) for Scotland using the high life expectancy variant by single year of age 0 to 100.

Between 2021 and 2023, London was the region of the United Kingdom that had the highest average life expectancy for females, at 84.13 years, while South East England had the highest life expectancy for males at 80.32 years. By comparison, Scotland had the lowest life expectancy, at 76.79 for males and 80.77 for females.

Life expectancy in the United Kingdom was below 39 years in the year 1765, and over the course of the next two and a half centuries, it is expected to have increased by more than double, to 81.1 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout the UK's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were the result of smallpox epidemics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, new sanitary and medical advancements throughout time (such as compulsory vaccination), and the First world War and Spanish Flu epidemic in the 1910s.

Female life expectancy at birth fell in all four countries of the United Kingdom in 2020-22 when compared with 2019/21. English women had a life expectancy of 82.83, compared with 80.73 in Scotland, 81.82 in Wales and 82.26 in Northern Ireland. In both England and Wales, life expectancy ticked up for the period 2021/23.

Historical chart and dataset showing U.K. life expectancy by year from 1950 to 2025.

Objective Gains in life expectancy have faltered in several high-income countries in recent years. We aim to compare life expectancy trends in Scotland to those seen internationally, and to assess the timing of any recent changes in mortality trends for Scotland. Setting Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England & Wales, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA. Methods We used life expectancy data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD) to calculate the mean annual life expectancy change for 24 high-income countries over five-year periods from 1992 to 2016, and the change for Scotland for five-year periods from 1857 to 2016. One- and two-break segmented regression models were applied to mortality data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) to identify turning points in age-standardised mortality trends between 1990 and 2018. Results In 2012-2016 life expectancies in Scotland increased by 2.5 weeks/year for females and 4.5 weeks/year for males, the smallest gains of any period since the early 1970s. The improvements in life expectancy in 2012-2016 were smallest among females (<2.0 weeks/year) in Northern Ireland, Iceland, England & Wales and the USA and among males (<5.0 weeks/year) in Iceland, USA, England & Wales and Scotland. Japan, Korea, and countries of Eastern Europe have seen substantial gains in the same period. The best estimate of when mortality rates changed to a slower rate of improvement in Scotland was the year to 2012 Q4 for males and the year to 2014 Q2 for females. Conclusion Life expectancy improvement has stalled across many, but not all, high income countries. The recent change in the mortality trend in Scotland occurred within the period 2012-2014. Further research is required to understand these trends, but governments must also take timely action on plausible contributors. Description of methods used for collection/generation of data: The HMD has a detailed methods protocol available here: https://www.mortality.org/Public/Docs/MethodsProtocol.pdf The ONS and NRS also have similar methods for ensuring data consistency and quality assurance. Methods for processing the data: The segmented regression was conducted using the 'segmented' package in R. The recommended references to this package and its approach are here: Vito M. R. Muggeo (2003). Estimating regression models with unknown break-points. Statistics in Medicine, 22, 3055-3071. Vito M. R. Muggeo (2008). segmented: an R Package to Fit Regression Models with Broken-Line Relationships. R News, 8/1, 20-25. URL https://cran.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/. Vito M. R. Muggeo (2016). Testing with a nuisance parameter present only under the alternative: a score-based approach with application to segmented modelling. J of Statistical Computation and Simulation, 86, 3059-3067. Vito M. R. Muggeo (2017). Interval estimation for the breakpoint in segmented regression: a smoothed score-based approach. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics, 59, 311-322. Software- or Instrument-specific information needed to interpret the data, including software and hardware version numbers: The analyses were conducted in R version 3.6.1 and Microsoft Excel 2013. Please see README.txt for further information HMD international_updated Jan 2019.xlsx Comprises 20 worksheets, of which 14 contain data. These data are arranged by country and by year. Missing data codes: "" The tab 'contents and sources' provides descriptions of the data source and contents of each sheet. HMD Scotland time trend analysis.xlsx Comprises 5 worksheets, including a combination of data and charts. The sheet 'contents' describes the data source and contents of other sheets. The variables include year, life expectancy, and various measures of change in life expectancy Missing data codes: "" Segmented regression chart.xlsx Comprises 2 worksheets, 'Data' and 'Chart'. Variables within the 'data' worksheet include: Year 4 quarter rolling period ending Female observed mortality rate Female predicted by one-break model Female predicted by two-break model Male observed mortality rate Male predicted by one-break model Male predicted by two-break model Chart breakpoint indicator Missing data codes: (blank space) Summary findings from segmented regression.xlsx Excel workbook containing table 1 of paper 'summary of results of segmented regression by population group and model/test'

It is only in the past two centuries where demographics and the development of human populations has emerged as a subject in its own right, as industrialization and improvements in medicine gave way to exponential growth of the world's population. There are very few known demographic studies conducted before the 1800s, which means that modern scholars have had to use a variety of documents from centuries gone by, along with archeological and anthropological studies, to try and gain a better understanding of the world's demographic development. Genealogical records One such method is the study of genealogical records from the past; luckily, there are many genealogies relating to European families that date back as far as medieval times. Unfortunately, however, all of these studies relate to families in the upper and elite classes; this is not entirely representative of the overall population as these families had a much higher standard of living and were less susceptible to famine or malnutrition than the average person (although elites were more likely to die during times of war). Nonetheless, there is much to be learned from this data. Impact of the Black Death In the centuries between 1200 and 1745, English male aristocrats who made it to their 21st birthday were generally expected to live to an age between 62 and 72 years old. The only century where life expectancy among this group was much lower was in the 1300s, where the Black Death caused life expectancy among adult English noblemen to drop to just 45 years. Experts assume that the pre-plague population of England was somewhere between four and seven million people in the thirteenth century, and just two million in the fourteenth century, meaning that Britain lost at least half of its population due to the plague. Although the plague only peaked in England for approximately eighteen months, between 1348 and 1350, it devastated the entire population, and further outbreaks in the following decades caused life expectancy in the decade to drop further. The bubonic plague did return to England sporadically until the mid-seventeenth century, although life expectancy among English male aristocrats rose again in the centuries following the worst outbreak, and even peaked at more than 71 years in the first half of the sixteenth century.

This data set contains the life tables the were computed for the study presented in: Torres, C., V. Canudas-Romo, and J. Oeppen (2019) 'The contribution of urbanization to changes in life expectancy in Scotland, 1861–1910', Population Studies, 73:3, 387-404, DOI: 10.1080/00324728.2018.1549746

The life tables are by sex and urban-rural category. For reasons explained in the paper, the tables cover periods of different lengths, from 1861 to 1910.

Example of how to load the data in R:

LT <- read.table("Urban-Rural-LifeTables-Scotland-1861-1910.txt", header = T, sep = ";")

Description of each column:
Period: time-interval, including the first and excluding the last indicated years (e.g., [1861,1866) corresponds to the years from 1861 to 1865). Available periods: 1861-1865, 1866-1870, 1871-1874, 1875-1877, 1878-1880, 1881-1885, 1886-1890, 1891-1892, 1893-1896, 1897-1900, 1901-1905, 1906-1910.
Population: Rural, Semi-Urban, Urban, or Total population (see definitions in Torres et al. 2019)
Sex: Female or Male
x : Age (from 0 to 110+, by single ages)
nmx: Death rate in the age interval [x, x+n)
nax: average number of person-years lived in the age interval [x, x+n) by those who die in that interval
nqx: Probability of dying in the age interval [x, x+n)
lx: number of survivors at exact age x, or probability of surviving until exact age x
ndx: Life-table deaths in the age interval [x, x+n)
nLx: Person-years lived in the age interval [x, x+n)
Tx: Person-years lived above age x
ex: Remaining life expectancy at age x

For more information about life tables in general, see: Preston, S., Heuveline, P., and Guillot, M. (2001). Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes. Wiley-Blackwell

The number of households in Scotland is projected to increase by 120,000 (5%) over the next 10 years, from 2.48 million in 2018 to 2.60 million in 2028. Over the entire 25-year projection period, the number of households is projected to increase by 10% to 2.71 million by 2043. This projection equates to an average of 12,000 additional households per year up to 2028. The rate of increase is lower in the later years of the projection period, with an average of 7,800 additional households per year projected between 2028 and 2043. Much of the projected growth in households between 2018 and 2028 will come from one-person and two adult households without dependent children. The numbers of these households are projected to increase by 8% (to 965,100 households) and 7% (to 830,600 households) respectively. The gap between the average life expectancy of men and women in Scotland is decreasing and so the number of older men is projected to increase more rapidly than the number of older women. Compared with 2018, the number of men aged 65 and over living alone is projected to increase by 23% (to 139,500) in 2028. Over the same period, the number of women aged 65 and over living alone is projected to increase by 16% (to 245,900). Growth in the number of households is fastest where the household reference person (HRP) is older: the number of households where the HRP is someone aged 65 or over is projected to increase by 20% between 2018 and 2028 (to 824,300 households). The increase is particularly large in the older age groups: the numbers of households with a HRP aged 75 to 84 is projected to increase by 30% (to 341,900 households), while for households with a HRP aged 85 or over a 22% increase (to 116,800 households) is projected. Between 2018 and 2028, increases in the number of households are projected in 28 of Scotland’s 32 council areas, with only Argyll and Bute, Inverclyde, Na-h Eileanan Siar and North Ayrshire projected to have decreases. The fastest growing areas are in the east of the country, with Midlothian projected to have the biggest (16%) percentage increase.

The statistic depicts the median age of the population in the United Kingdom from 1950 to 2100*. The median age of a population is an index that divides the population into two equal groups: half of the population is older than the median age and the other half younger. In 2020, the median age of United Kingdom's population was 39.2 years. Population of the United Kingdom The United Kingdom (UK) includes Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and is a state located off the coast of continental Europe. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, which means the Queen acts as representative head of state, while laws and constitutional issues are discussed and passed by a parliament. The total UK population figures have been steadily increasing, albeit only slightly, over the last decade; in 2011, the population growth rate was lower than in the previous year for the first time in eight years. Like many other countries, the UK and its economy were severely affected by the economic crisis in 2009. Since then, the unemployment rate has doubled and is only recovering slowly. UK inhabitants tend to move to the cities to find work and better living conditions; urbanization in the United Kingdom has been on the rise. At the same time, population density in the United Kingdom has been increasing due to several factors, for example, the rising number of inhabitants and their life expectancy at birth, an increasing fertility rate, and a very low number of emigrants. In fact, the United Kingdom is now among the 20 countries with the highest life expectancy at birth worldwide. As can be seen above, the median age of UK residents has also been increasing significantly since the seventies; another indicator for a well-working economy and society.

Between 1991 and 2021 there has been a clear trend of mothers having children later in life in the United Kingdom, with the average age of mothers in the increasing from 27.7 in 1991 to 30.9 by 2021.

There were 694,685 live births recorded in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 681,560 in the previous year. Between 1887 and 2021 the year with the highest number of live births was 1920 when there were approximately 1.13 million births, while the year with the fewest births was 1977, when there were just 657,038 births. Birth rate at a historic low in 2020 At 10.2 births per 1,000 people, the birth rate of the United Kingdom in 2020 was at a historic low. After witnessing a twenty-first century high of 12.9 in 2010, the birth rate gradually declined before a sharp decrease was recorded between 2012 and 2013. Although there was a slight uptick in the birth rate in 2021, when there were 10.4 births per 1,000 people, the total fertility rate reached a low of 1.53 births per woman in the same year. As well as falling birth and fertility rates, the average age of mothers has been increasing. In 1991, the average age of mothers at childbirth was 27.7 years, compared with 30.9 years in 2021. UK population reaches 67 million In 2022, the overall population of the United Kingdom was almost 67.6 million people. Of the four countries that comprise the UK, England has by far the highest population, at 57.1 million, compared with 5.45 million in Scotland, 3.13 million in Wales, and 1.91 million in Northern Ireland. These countries are far less densely populated than England, especially when compared to London, which had approximately 5,630 people per square kilometer, compared with just 70 in Scotland. After London, North West England was the second-most densely populated area of the UK, which includes the large metropolitan areas of the cities of Manchester, and Liverpool