30th August 2026
Scotland has a population problem. The Scottish Government is increasingly clear about that as Birth rates are low, the population is ageing and some parts of the country are struggling to maintain the working-age population needed to support businesses, public services and local communities.
Its latest report, Migration Supporting the Future of Scotland's Economy and Communities published on 29 August, makes the case for a migration system better tailored to Scotland's circumstances.
The Scottish Government argues that Scotland needs sustainable population growth and wants greater flexibility over immigration policy, including the possibility of devolving more immigration powers to Scotland.
There is a serious economic argument here. If Scotland has fewer young people entering the workforce while the number of older people increases, something has to compensate. Higher productivity can help, encouraging people who have left Scotland to return can help, and attracting workers from elsewhere can certainly help.
But there is a rather large question sitting underneath the whole argument.
Where are all these additional people going to live?
That is not a minor detail. Scotland is already dealing with a housing emergency. The Scottish Government has introduced a Housing Emergency Action Plan and new legal duties aimed at preventing homelessness, while the pressure on affordable and social housing remains substantial.
So there is a potential contradiction in government policy.
On one hand, Scotland says it needs more people.
On the other, Scotland is struggling to provide enough homes for the people who are already here.
That does not mean migration is wrong. It means that migration, housing and infrastructure cannot sensibly be treated as three separate policy questions.
Imagine a rural Scottish town where a care home has ten vacancies. The Scottish Government might reasonably say that bringing ten suitably qualified workers into the country could help solve the problem.
But what happens if there are no ten affordable homes available?
The workers still need somewhere to live. Their families may need schools. They will need access to GPs, dentists and other services. They will travel on roads and use public transport. They will need shops and other facilities.
The additional workers may solve a labour shortage while simultaneously increasing pressure on housing and public services.
That is particularly important in rural Scotland, where the argument for migration can be particularly strong. Small communities can benefit enormously from new residents. A family moving into a village can help keep a school open, support local shops and provide workers for businesses and public services.
But rural communities also have some of the most restricted housing markets in the country. A shortage of affordable homes can mean that local young people cannot afford to remain in their own communities while employers struggle to recruit.
That creates a difficult political problem.
People may support immigration in principle while asking a perfectly reasonable question: why is the Government encouraging population growth before it has solved the housing shortage?
There is another issue which deserves much more attention in this debate: retirement.
The traditional idea that people work until 60 or 65 and then disappear from the labour market is increasingly outdated. The State Pension age is now rising to 67, and there is no longer a default retirement age requiring people to stop working.
That matters when politicians talk about the size of Scotland's working-age population.
Increasing the State Pension age does not magically create additional workers. But it can change the number of people who remain economically active. If someone who might previously have retired at 65 continues working until 67, that person remains part of the workforce for another two years.
And many people work beyond State Pension age.
Scottish Government research has previously demonstrated the increasing importance of older workers. Between 2004 and 2015, the employment rate among people aged 65 and over in Scotland increased from 5.2% to 8.2%, with around 80,000 pensioners in employment by 2015.
More recent Scottish Government research has also noted that workers aged over 50 now account for roughly a third of the Scottish workforce.
So there are really two different questions.
How many people does Scotland have of working age?
And how many people does Scotland actually have working?
They are not necessarily the same thing.
A person aged 66 who continues working is contributing to the economy, paying taxes and producing goods or services even though they may be classified differently in population statistics because of changes to State Pension age.
This suggests that Scotland should be looking much more seriously at its existing workforce before concluding that additional migration is the only answer to labour shortages.
That does not mean expecting everybody to work until they are 70 or 75. Nor should older people who are unable to work be treated as an unused economic resource. Health, caring responsibilities, disability, the physical demands of particular occupations and individual choice all matter.
But there is an enormous difference between saying that older people should be forced to work and saying that people who want to continue working should be given every opportunity to do so.
Flexible hours could make a difference. Part-time work could make a difference. Retraining could make a difference. Better workplace practices could make a difference. Removing age discrimination could make a difference.
For some people, the transition from full-time work to retirement might be gradual rather than a cliff edge.
That could be particularly valuable in sectors where experience matters.
A 68-year-old engineer, accountant, tradesperson, manager or business owner does not suddenly lose their skills because they have reached State Pension age. A nurse or care worker may not want to work full-time but might be willing to work fewer hours. A self-employed person might continue working because they enjoy it.
The challenge for Scotland is therefore considerably more complicated than simply increasing the number of migrants.
There are potentially several ways of increasing the effective workforce: helping young people into work, reducing long-term economic inactivity, making it easier for parents to work, attracting people who have left Scotland back home, encouraging businesses to invest and increase productivity, retaining older workers who want to remain economically active, and attracting migrants where genuine labour shortages remain.
Migration can be part of that package.
But it should not be the only part.
There is also a danger in assuming that population growth automatically produces economic growth.
It can, but it depends on what happens to productivity, wages, housing costs, infrastructure and public services.
If 100,000 additional people arrive but the country does not build enough houses, the result is not necessarily 100,000 additional homes. Demand rises faster than supply.
If more people arrive but GP capacity does not increase, waiting times can become longer.
If businesses gain workers but wages and productivity do not improve, the economic benefit may be less impressive than the headline population increase suggests.
And if existing residents begin to believe that government is putting population growth ahead of their ability to obtain a home or access a public service, support for migration can weaken.
That is why the Scottish Government needs to be careful about the way it presents this debate.
The argument should not be "Scotland needs migrants, therefore Scotland needs more migration."
It should be: Scotland needs more people participating in the economy, and migration is one way of achieving that.
That distinction matters.
It opens the door to a much wider discussion about why people leave the workforce in the first place, why some young Scots leave the country, why some older workers retire earlier than they would like, why businesses struggle to recruit and why housing supply has failed to keep pace with demand in so many communities.
It also raises an uncomfortable question about Scottish public policy.
If Scotland genuinely needs population growth, shouldn't the Government first make Scotland a place where people can actually afford to live?
More houses would not just benefit migrants. They would benefit young Scots trying to establish themselves, families needing larger homes, older people wanting to downsize, workers moving to take up jobs and businesses trying to recruit.
Likewise, better transport and stronger local services would benefit everyone, regardless of where they were born.
There is a way of having a migration debate that is neither anti-immigration nor blindly pro-immigration.
It starts with accepting that migration can bring enormous economic and social benefits while also accepting that communities have a finite capacity unless government invests in expanding that capacity.
Scotland cannot sensibly ask employers to recruit more people from overseas while simultaneously leaving those workers competing for a limited supply of homes.
Nor should migration become a substitute for tackling economic inactivity, improving productivity or making it easier for older people who want to work to remain in employment.
The Scottish Government is right that demographics matter.
But demographics are not destiny.
People change their retirement decisions. Businesses change how they employ people. Technology changes productivity. Young people can be encouraged to remain. Scots who have moved elsewhere can return. Older workers can remain economically active for longer. And, yes, migrants can bring skills, energy and population growth.
The sensible question is therefore not whether Scotland should have migration.
It is whether Scotland has a coherent plan for population, employment, housing and infrastructure together.
At present, it is difficult to see that whole plan.
And until the housing shortage is being tackled at the same speed as the Government wants to tackle the population shortage, many Scots may reasonably ask the simplest question of all:
If Scotland needs more people, who is going to build the homes they are supposed to live in?