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By Micah McCartney
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Kazakhstan's unexpected population boom appears to have run its course, two decades after the former Soviet republic showed modernization doesn't always correlate with fewer children.
The country recorded 77,300 births in the first quarter of this year, a 16 percent decline compared with the same period in 2024, according to official data.
Newsweek has reached out to the Kazakh health ministry by email with a request for comment.
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Why It Matters
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kazakhstan's total fertility rate—the average number of births expected per woman—began falling sharply, dropping well below the 2.1 level needed to sustain a population during the economic and social upheaval that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The trend suddenly reversed in the early 2000s as oil- and gas-fueled growth transformed the economy, lifting fertility to levels comparable to or even higher than some of its poorer Central Asian neighbors. For two decades, Kazakhstan defied the global pattern of falling births that usually accompanies economic development.
What To Know
The drop in the number of births continues a broader trend that began after Kazakhstan's fertility rate peaked at 3.3 children per woman in 2021. In total, the country registered 365,000 births in 2024, down 18 percent from the previous year.
Demographers say Kazakhstan's earlier rebound in the 2000s and 2010s reflected recovery from the economic turmoil of the post-Soviet era, rather than a permanent shift toward larger families.
"Apart from the fact that children became more affordable under better economic conditions, [parents] also face higher opportunity costs," wrote demographer Maxim Kan, a postdoctoral researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, in a 2023 paper.
"Thus, it is expected that fertility will recuperate during economic improvement but then stabilize at certain levels."
What's Next
Surveys suggest that shift may already be underway as younger Kazakhs place more emphasis on education, careers and personal pursuits than on planning large families.
A national survey conducted in 2024 by the state-affiliated Kazakhstan Institute of Public Development found that 51 percent of respondents who already had children did not want more.
Just 13 percent hoped for two children, 9 percent for three, and 10 percent for four or more. Nearly 4 percent said they did not want any children at all, with the preference more common in cities than in rural areas.
Kazakhstan's population remains relatively young, with a median age of 32.3 years in 2024, according to government statistics.
The country is therefore not likely to face the same demographic pressures driving policymakers in nations with fast-aging populations such as South Korea.
Yet some observers caution against taking too optimistic a view of Kazakhstan's demographic situation trajectory.
"We can talk all we want about the state's obligation to develop the social sphere and create jobs, but the fact is that population growth is systematically outpacing both," wrote political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev in a Telegram post last year.
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