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Kazakstan
Demographic Factors
The birth rate, which is declining slowly, was estimated at
19.4 births per 1,000 population in 1994 (see table 2, Appendix).
The death rate, which has been climbing slowly, was estimated
at 7.9 per 1,000 population--leaving a rate of natural increase
of 1.1 percent, by far the lowest among the five Central Asian
republics. In 1995 the total fertility rate--2.4 births per woman,
a drop from the 1990 figure of 2.8--also was far below the rates
for the other Central Asian republics. In the first six months
of 1994, some 1.8 percent fewer babies were born than in the same
period the previous year. In the same months, the number of deaths
rose by 2.5 percent compared with those in the same period in
1993. In some provinces, death rates are much higher than the
average, however. Shygys Qazaqstan (East Kazakstan) Province has
a death rate of 12.9 per thousand; Soltustik Qazaqstan (North
Kazakstan) Province, eleven per 1,000; and Almaty Province, 11.3
deaths per 1,000. The cause of nearly half of these deaths is
cardiovascular disease.
Because of declining life expectancy and decreases in the size
of the Russian population, which is demographically older and
has a low birth rate, the republic's residents are a relatively
young group; in 1991 there were only 149 pensioners per 1,000
population, as opposed to 212 per 1,000 in the former Soviet Union
as a whole (see table 3, Appendix). The republic is experiencing
a pronounced outflow of citizens, primarily non-Kazaks moving
to other former Soviet republics. Although figures conflict, it
seems likely that as many as 750,000 non-Kazaks left the republic
between independence and the end of 1995. Official figures indicate
that in the first half of 1994 some 220,400 people left, compared
with 149,800 in the same period of 1993. In 1992 and 1993, the
number of Russian emigrants was estimated at 100,000 to 300,000.
Such out-migration is not uniform. Some regions, such as Qaraghandy,
have lost as much as 10 percent of their total population, resulting
in shortages of technicians and skilled specialists in that heavily
industrial area.
To some extent, the outflow has been offset by in-migration,
which has been of two types. Kazakstan's government has actively
encouraged the return of Kazaks from elsewhere in the former Soviet
Union and from China and Mongolia. Unlike other ethnic groups,
ethnic Kazaks are granted automatic citizenship. More than 60,000
Kazaks emigrated from Mongolia in 1991-94, their settlement--or
resettlement--eased by government assistance. Most were moved
to the northern provinces, where the majority of Kazakstan's Russian
population lives. Because these "Mongol Kazaks" generally do not
know Russian and continue to pursue traditional nomadic lifestyles,
the impact of their resettlement has been disproportionate to
their actual numbers.
The other major source of in-migration has been non-Kazaks arriving
from other parts of Central Asia to avoid inhospitable conditions;
most of these people also have settled in northern Kazakstan.
Although officially forbidden and actively discouraged, this in-migration
has continued. In a further attempt to control in-migration, President
Nazarbayev decreed that no more than 5,000 families would be permitted
to take up residence in the republic in 1996.
Data as of March 1996
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