The number of births registered in Scotland last year has hit record low since the data was first collected in 1855, latest figures show.
Final 2019 figures from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) show there were 49,863 live births recorded in 2019.
That makes it the fifth year running that there have been more deaths than births in Scotland, with a total of 8,245 more deaths.
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Pete Whitehouse, NRS director of Statistical Services, said: “The latest figures maintain the recent trends, with births continuing to fall and little change in the death rate.
“The age-standardised death rate, which takes account of the growing and ageing population, had been decreasing steadily over recent decades but has changed very little since 2014.”
58,108 deaths were registered last year, a 0.7% decrease on the number in 2018 but the second highest annual total since 2003.
Meanwhile, the rate of stillbirths has improved, with 174 stillbirths in 2019, the lowest stillbirth rate ever recorded.
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Marriages also fell to the lowest number on record, with only 26,007 in 2019, while the number of civil partnerships grew by 18 to a total of 83 in 2019.
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