IN THE 1970s Scotland's population began to go into decline for the first time since reaching more than five million in 1939.

Recovery stalled between 1981 and 2001, prompting initiatives such as Fresh Talent, undertaken by the Labour-Liberal Democrat administration at Holyrood under Jack McConnell in 2004, which sought to keep high quality students who had come to our universities from overseas in our labour market after graduation.

That initiative, giving Scotland an edge over the rest of the UK, was resented by some English universities and Fresh Talent was in effect scrapped when Westminster introduced a new points-based immigration system in 2008. UK immigration policy continues to rankle with leading figures in our higher education sector who believe Scotland would benefit from our own, more tailored policy.

Nevertheless, the period of Fresh Start was an important four years because it enshrined the acceptance among policy makers, percolating out to the wider public, that immigration could be good for the country.

Polls and attitude surveys have shown that Scots' views on immigration are only slightly more liberal than those South of the Borders but it is the job of our politicians to make clear the dangers of a declining population because that tends to mean an ageing population, with the demographic challenge that brings.

So it is excellent news that the nation's population in mid-2014 reached the highest level in our history, at 5,347,600, up by just under 20,000 (0.4%) on the previous year. Some 3500 more Scots were born than died, 9600 more came from the rest of the UK (49,240) than moved elsewhere in Britain, while 8000 more came from overseas (33,200) than departed our shores (25,200).

The most important demographic for the health of our society is that more than two-thirds of migrants from overseas and nearly half of those from the rest of the UK are aged 16-34 years, compared to only a quarter of our indigenous population in this bracket.

As a result of these flows the median age of the Scottish population, the point at which half are older and half are number, was 41. A problem which policy makers will have to address is that there is a marked urban rural divide, with the median age in cities being 35 or 36 while in the countryside is is 47, which could indicate a challenge in caring for our elderly in rural areas in decades to come.

There was a time when ambitious young Scots felt they had to leave their native land to get on, and these figures indicate that has been reversed. Our cities are now more vibrant, cosmopolitan places where the languages of Europe and further afield can be heard. This, surely, is the future.