The Scottish Population
Over the last 30 years, the Scottish population has decreased slightly by 1 per cent1, although there have been more significant changes in the profile by age and gender. The percentage aged over normal working age ( 60 years for women and 65 years for men) has increased from 14% to 18%, while the percentage of men of working age (aged 18-64 years) increased from 59% to 64%, and the percentage of women of working age (aged 18-59 years) increased from 52% to 56%. Overall, the number of people moving into the retirement age group over the next 20 years (i.e. currently aged 40-59 years) is likely to be of the order of 2% less than 30 years ago (1.29 million to 1.26 million), while the number moving into the employment age group (i.e. currently aged 0-19 years) is likely to decrease by 27% (1.75 million to 1.28 million), assuming no net migration2.
Chart A: Scottish Population Profile 1966-1996
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Source: General Register Office for Scotland
The post-war population trend in Scotland has been fundamentally extremely weak. While the UK population has increased by around 20% in the 1951-1999 period, the aggregate population in Scotland has been broadly static (see Chart B2).
Population trends of this form and migration, in particular, may be seen as symptomatic of a range of underlying social and economic issues. To this extent, they may have broader relevance to the longer-term development prospects. There are some issues to consider when assessing the relevance of population changes to the labour market and the economy:
Chart B: Population trends: UK and Scotland 1951 to 1999
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Source: General Register Office for Scotland
The working population
There are currently around 3.2 million working aged people in Scotland. This number has been relatively stable over the last 20 years, but is expected to start to fall in a few years time.
Around 70 per cent of the working aged people are active in the labour market - either working or seeking work (Chart C). A greater proportion of men than women are active, although this gap has closed considerably over the last 20 years.
On average, people in Scotland remain in the labour market for 44 years - leaving full time education aged 17 and retiring aged 61.
Employment
In Scotland, around 2.3 million people were in work in 1999 (Table 3.9). The vast majority were employees (2 million), but there were also 213,000 self-employed people, and 21,000 people on government training schemes (Table 3.10).
Chart C: Employment Rate by Gender, Scotland 1960-1999
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Source: Office for National Statistics
Almost three-quarters of employees work in service industries, with most of the other employees in production and construction. Only 1 per cent of employees work in agriculture, forestry or fishing. This is a dramatically different picture from earlier this century where only a third of workers were in the service sector (Table 3.11).
Most people in Scotland work on a full time basis, though women are more likely to work part time. This is predominantly for family reasons (three-quarters of working women work part-time). Men do an average 38 hour week, and women a 25 hour week (Table 3.7).
Earnings
The average gross weekly earnings for full-time employees in Scotland, in April 1999, were £365 (Table 3.16). This was £35 per week (9 per cent) less than the GB average. Women, earn on average, 73 per cent of what men do. This gap has narrowed slightly over the last 10 years, but there is no sign of it being completely eroded.
Managers and administrators earned the most - on average £532 per week, compared with clerical and secretarial occupations earning only £262 per week on average.
The national minimum wage was introduced throughout the UK in April 1999. While it is not yet clear what the full impact of its introduction will be, around 145,000 workers in Scotland earned under the minimum wage in Spring 1998.
Household Income and Expenditure
Earnings (compensation for employment) represented around 56 per cent of estimated total household income in Scotland in 1997 (Table 3.1). Pensions represented a further 13 per cent and other social benefits represented 11 per cent.
Average household disposable income in 1997 was estimated to be £8,661 per head, a figure almost 8 per cent less than the UK average.
Table 3.4 shows that, after child benefits and pensions, the DSS benefit claimed by most people in Scotland was Council Tax benefit, with Scotland accounting for 11.2 per cent of the GB total at November 1998. 21 per cent of Scotland's working population were claiming at least one of the key DSS benefits as described in Table 3.4, compared to 17 per cent in GB as a whole.
Of the total Scottish consumption, almost 22 per cent was spent on food, drink and tobacco in 1997. This compares to an equivalent figure of 24 per cent in 1990. Over the same period, expenditure on recreation rose from 9 per cent of total consumption expenditure by Scots to 11 per cent (Table 3.2).
Unemployment
In the spring of 1999, around 182,000 people in Scotland were unemployed; that is, they were not in a job, but were available and actively seeking work. This is 7.4 per cent of all people active in the labour market - lower than at any time in the last 15 years (Table 3.9).
Unemployment rates for women are lower than for men (see Chart D). However, this may reflect the fact that a smaller proportion of women is active in the labour market. Also unemployment rates are higher for young people (16 per cent for people aged 18-24, and 5 per cent for people aged 35+). This could be because not all people go immediately into employment after leaving education.
Chart D: Unemployment rate by gender, Scotland, 1984-1999
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Source: Office for National Statistics
Inactivity
There are around 730,000 people of working age in Scotland who do not participate in the labour market - just over one in five. Of these, just under one in three want work, but are not actively looking for it, or are unavailable for work. People are inactive in the labour market for many reasons; the most common are