Scotland Sees Rise in Marriages

10 March 2011

Registrar General publishes births, deaths and marriages data for 2010.

The number of marriages in Scotland rose by almost a thousand during 2010 compared with the previous year, the Registrar General for Scotland announced today.

New figures published by the General Register Office for Scotland show there were 28,480 marriages in 2010 – 956 more than in 2009. The number of divorces in Scotland fell by 478 to 9,893 during the same period.

The number of births registered in 2010 was 58,792 – 254 fewer than in 2009; and the number of deaths in Scotland rose by 111 to 53,967.

The figures also show that two of the country’s three ‘biggest killers’ claimed fewer lives in 2010 than during the previous year. Deaths from coronary heart disease fell by 2.1 per cent and deaths from strokes fell by 2.7 per cent. There were 81 more deaths from cancer - a 0.5 per cent increase..

Commenting on his publication of provisional totals of the number of births, deaths and marriages registered during 2010, Registrar General for Scotland Duncan Macniven said:

“We saw an increase in the number of marriages in Scotland in 2010. At 28,480, the total for the year was 956 higher than in 2009 but still 423 fewer than in 2008.

“The number of divorces fell to 9,893. This is not unexpected - the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, which came into effect on 4 May 2006, reduced separation periods for divorce, so there was an increase of over 2,000 divorces in 2006 followed by decreases in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The average of these five years is around 11,500 which is slightly higher than the levels recorded immediately before the change in legislation.

“There were almost 59,000 births and almost 54,000 deaths in 2010 – the fifth year in a row when fewer deaths than births were registered. Compared with 2009, the number of deaths rose by just over 100 and there were around 250 fewer births. The slight fall in the number of births was the second annual reduction, after six consecutive annual increases.”

Mr Macniven also explained that the coding of the causes of death was being updated, to take account of a number of changes to the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. The statistics for the first quarter of 2011, to be published in June, will be the first to be produced using the improved coding and will be accompanied by a note on the effect of the classification changes.

The full publication 2010 Births, Deaths and Other Vital Events - Preliminary Annual Figures is available on this website.