A study published earlier this year shows further evidence of a sinking population in most Scottish island communities.
The research, conducted by the James Hutton Institute, predicts that the population of the sparsely populated areas of these islands will diminish by up to 25 percent by 2046.
Researchers Andrew Copus and Jonathan Hopkins looked at data from population census records from 1991, 2001 and 2011 as well as a number of other indicators to formulate their projections.
Hopkins said: “We used a number of statistical models to formulate this data.
“The models we used have been tried and tested on a number of other similar projects and have proved to be very reliable.”
The projections are based on estimated population numbers that are broken up into five-year chunks which start in 2011 and end in 2046
Communities such as the Western Isles and Argyll and Bute will be the most severely affected according to the study.
Projections show that these two areas are expected to lose up to 30 percent of the number of residents from the 2011 census.
Hopkins said: “The main reason for these lower population figures is the lack of affordable housing on the islands.
“That, coupled with the limited job opportunities on the islands means that it’s hard for people to have a reason to move to the islands.
Copus and Hopkins used indicators such as population estimates from National Record Scotland to support their projections.
Hopkins said one of the biggest detriments to accurately reporting on these statistics is that there is a lack of data. The official census records only occur once every ten years and the census for 2021 has been pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hopkins said: “I’ve come at the issue from a very quantitative perspective and when you look at only the numbers, it shows a very negative outlook for these island communities.
“But in the meantime, my colleagues here at The James Hutton Institute have heard many stories of anecdotal evidence of population resurgence in the exact same areas where our research is showing a decline.
“It’s easy to sit here and dismiss this evidence as simply ‘anecdotal’ but as a human geographer, we have to pay attention to the stories of the people we’re studying as well.
“The difference between the stories we’re hearing and the figures we’re looking at means that this has been a very interesting topic to cover and we’re interested to see how the future census numbers change our research,”
The anecdotal evidence that Hopkins is referring to comes from the Islands Revival Project. Another researcher at the Hutton Institute, Ruth Wilson, led the project.
The purpose of the project was to gather qualitative evidence of population resurgence on the islands by getting the community involved through sharing written stories on a website that the study had set up.
The site hosts writings from communities all across the islands which highlight positive topics of population increase and look at projects within these communities that aim to battle the problem of population decline.
The project was part of a collaboration by The James Hutton Institute, the Scottish Government and Scotland’s Rural College.
Copus has since left the institute, but Hopkins said he is continuing the research and plans to release new figures which analyze much newer data from 2018 and project the population figures out to 2043.
One of the most interesting factors of the research according to Hopkins, is that Copus was able to use data from the projections to predict the number of people that would need to join the population on the islands in order for the declination to subside.
Their calculations found that just 1,300 people would need to move to the sparsely populated areas of the islands in order to counteract the issue.
Hopkins said: “The real issue isn’t necessarily the number of people we need to get to the islands, but rather where they’re going to live and work once they get there.”
The James Hutton Institute plans to release updated statistics on this issue later this year.