It has been argued that Scotland faces population ageing and decline that will have potentially serious economic and social consequences, and that the origin of these process lie in its low and declining fertility rates. This paper argues that low fertility is not the problem it is purported to be, and that pro-natalism is both undesirable and unnecessary. It suggests that low fertility and pop...

This paper looks in detail at the proposals for further fiscal devolution to the Scottish Parliament following the No vote in September’s independence referendum. The proposals vary significantly in terms of the taxes proposed for devolution and the balance between welfare spending devolution and maintenance of UK-wide social welfare union, but all envisage Scotland evolving into a semi-autonom...

T raffic impact analysis is a common tool for assessing traffic access needs in the vicinity of new and expanding development sites. Considerable attention has been given in recent years to the development and refinement of procedures and data bases to support these analyses. It has been recognized for some time that shopping centers and several other convenience-oriented land-use types (e.g., ...

This paper introduces a special issue on 'Histories of asylums, insanity and psychiatry in Scotland', situating the papers that follow in an outline historiography of work in this field. Using Allan Beveridge's claims in 1993 about the relative lack of research on the history of psychiatry in Scotland, the paper reviews a range of contributions that have emerged since then, loosely distinguishi...

This document presents key findings from a project that explored the relationship between children’s experience of pre-school provision and change in their social and cognitive development between ages 3 and 5. The project examined differences in the characteristics of pre-school provision experienced by different children and whether, in particular, the quality of the provision – as assessed t...

National identifications, cues from political actors, and cost-benefit calculations have been pointed as the main determinants of secession preferences. However, a recent surge in independence support Scotland suggests that abrupt changes may also affect these preferences: Brexit differentiated management Covid-19 pandemic by UK Scottish governments are named causes first sustained majority reg...