The line graph illustrates the demographic situation in Scotland between 1940 and 2020. It includes three different rates, which are birth, population growth, and death rate.
Overall, Scotland’s demographic trends have been going down gradually since 1940 despite the rise in birth and population growth between 1945 and 1955. The diagram shows that the Scottish population growth correlates mostly to the amount of newborns in the region.
Firstly, between 1940 and 1970, the demography of Scotland underwent significant fluctuations. The birth rate in 1940 was 2.5 per cent but decreased by 0.5 per cent by 1945. After a slight increase in 1950, it went down to 1 per cent in 1965. The death rate fell from 1.5 per cent to less than 0.5 per cent between and levelled off in 1955 until a gradual decline from 1980 to 2010. After this, it faced a slight upswing.
Secondly, while the death rates were declining or remained stable, it allowed the number of births to impact positively on demographic growth. For example, The figure depicts the upward trend in the population growth rate between 1945 and 1955 after an increase in births by 0.5 per cent since 1945 which ended in 1950. Between 1965 and 1970, there was also a subtle lift in population amount, which is proportional to the percentage of births during that time.