Kazakhstan Life & Culture - The Times Of Central Asia

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Demographics

Kazakhstan’s Demographic Shift Puts Labor Market Under Strain

Kazakhstan’s population surpassed 20.5 million in the spring of 2026, but the country’s rapid demographic growth is increasingly being accompanied by structural economic imbalances. Kazakhstan is simultaneously facing the effects of declining birth rates, population aging, and a widening gap between the education system and labor market needs. Economists warn that the country is entering a phase in which the large generation born during the baby boom of the 2000s is placing growing pressure on the labor market, even as the share of the working-age population gradually declines. According to Kazakhstan’s Bureau of National Statistics, the number of births peaked in 2021, when 446,500 children were born. By 2025, this figure had fallen to 335,000, the lowest level in the past five years. The total fertility rate also declined to 2.57 children per woman, marking the lowest level since 2009. The decline in births has occurred despite a growing number of women of reproductive age. By early 2026, their number had reached a record 4.79 million. Analysts note that the drop in the overall birth rate to 16.43 births per 1,000 people, the lowest level in more than two decades, points to changing household behavioral patterns. In Kazakhstan’s largest cities, including Almaty and Astana, families are increasingly postponing childbirth because of high housing costs and rising debt burdens. The average age of motherhood has approached 30 years, reaching 29.9. High inflation is adding further pressure on households. Annual inflation remained in double digits in early 2026, which, combined with mortgage expenses, has made raising large families significantly less affordable for the urban middle class. Kazakhstan’s demographic dynamics are also becoming increasingly uneven. In the southern and western regions, fertility rates remain above the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. However, in northern regions, fertility has declined to between 1.63 and 1.75, approaching levels more typical of Eastern European countries. Population growth is still supported by rising life expectancy and relatively low mortality, around 6.64 deaths per 1,000 people over the past four years. Nevertheless, demographers warn that the current increase in population masks a gradual future decline in the labor force. One of the key risks is the shrinking share of the working-age population. Over the past decade, it has fallen from 64% to 57.7%, increasing pressure on employed citizens to finance pension and social welfare systems. Experts warn that a decline in the number of contributors paying mandatory social contributions creates long-term risks for Kazakhstan’s Unified Accumulative Pension Fund and the Social Health Insurance Fund. At the same time, an aging population is increasing state healthcare expenditures. Businesses are already facing labor shortages in some industrial and agricultural regions. In the North Kazakhstan Region, employers have reported shortages in agriculture, manufacturing, and other key sectors. Kazakhstan adds more than 350,000 new labor market entrants each year, thanks to the generation born in the early 2000s. However, instead of entering industry or agriculture, many young people are increasingly choosing jobs in the urban service economy, including taxi services, delivery...

TCA Interviews

Identity and a New National Canon: Interview with Kazakhstan Historian Zhaxylyk Sabitov

Interest in Kazakhstan’s history is increasingly moving beyond academic circles. For many people, it has become a way to understand the country’s modern identity as well as its past. The Times of Central Asia spoke with historian Zhaxylyk Sabitov, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ulus of Jochi, about why many chapters of Kazakhstan’s history remain insufficiently studied. The Ulus of Jochi, also known as the Golden Horde, was one of the largest medieval states in Eurasia and is closely tied to debates over Kazakhstan’s statehood and historical memory. The interview also explored which topics resonate most strongly with society today and how a new understanding of national memory is taking shape. TCA: To begin, please tell us a little about yourself. How did you become interested in history, and why did you decide to work in this field? Zhaxylyk: I am the director of the Research Institute for the Study of the Jochi Ulus. My interest in history began in childhood. The problem was that in the 1980s and 1990s, history in Kazakhstan was taught rather poorly. There were few textbooks and teaching materials, and schoolchildren generally knew little about the subject. That is why I was always interested in trying to understand the past for myself. In addition, I inherited a library of history books from my grandfather. I read those books, and in the 1990s my mother helped me buy new publications. All of this gradually shaped my interest in the history of Kazakhstan. You could say I became interested in history while still at school and later continued to study it professionally. TCA: For readers who may not know much about you, how would you describe your research work and the main topics you focus on? Zhaxylyk: I have several main areas of work. The first is the history of the Golden Horde. This was the state that preceded the Kazakh Khanate and occupied a vast territory stretching from the Altai to the Danube. The second area is the history of the Kazakh Khanate. This also remains insufficiently studied. In the history of both the Golden Horde and the Kazakh Khanate, there were more than 100 khans. It is interesting to study how they interacted, where and how they ruled, and under what circumstances their rule took place. The third area is genetics, or the genetic history of Kazakh tribes and clans, as well as those of other Turkic peoples, including Kyrgyz, Karakalpaks, Nogais, and Bashkirs. This topic allows us to address questions that have been debated for two centuries. For example, there are many theories regarding the origins of certain Kazakh tribes. With the help of genetics, we are trying to understand which of these theories is closer to the truth and, more broadly, to better understand the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs and other Turkic peoples. The fourth topic is nation-building policy and historical memory. I am interested in how the state constructs the canon of national history and how this influences...

UFO Files

Pentagon UFO Files Include 1994 Tajik Air Report Over Kazakhstan

On May 8, the Pentagon released the first batch of U.S. Department of War files on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), including a State Department cable describing a 1994 sighting by Tajik Air pilots over Kazakhstan. The new archive, called the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, was created in response to a directive from U.S. president Donald Trump. It covers unresolved cases where the government cannot make a definitive determination from available data, with further releases expected “every few weeks.” The department uses the current term UAP as well as the older term unidentified flying object (UFO). The release includes a three-page unclassified State Department cable from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe. Dated January 31, 1994, it is titled “Tajik Air Pilots Report Unidentified Flying Object” and carries a State Department “Released in Full” stamp dated February 25, 2026. The same cable had previously appeared in CUFON’s archive of State Department UFO records, released in 2000 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. According to the cable, Tajik Air chief pilot Ed Rhodes, identified as a United States citizen, and two American pilot colleagues reported that they had encountered a UFO on January 27, 1994, while flying at 41,000 feet in a Boeing 747SP. The location was given as latitude 45 north and longitude 55 east, over Kazakhstan. The pilots described the object as an intensely bright light approaching from the east at high speed and at an altitude far above their aircraft. They said they watched it for about 40 minutes as it moved in circles, corkscrews, and 90-degree turns. Rhodes reportedly took several photographs with a pocket Olympus camera and said copies would be sent to the embassy and to the Tajikistan desk at the State Department if they came out. No such photographs appear in the released cable. The crew could not identify the object’s shape because it was dark. They described its light as resembling a “bow wave,” and later said the aircraft flew beneath contrails left by the object after sunrise. Rhodes estimated those contrails to be at about 100,000 feet. The embassy suggested that the object might have been a meteor entering and skipping off the Earth’s atmosphere. Rhodes and the other pilots rejected that explanation, saying their years flying passenger aircraft for Pan Am had given them extensive experience with meteors and space junk. Based on the object’s reported speed and maneuverability, Rhodes expressed the view, which the cable says his crew seemed to support, that it was “extraterrestrial and under intelligent control.” The U.S. government recorded what the pilots said, but the cable does not confirm what they saw, as demonstrated in the file’s cautionary note: “We have no opinion and report the above for what it may be worth.” The release adds an official U.S. record to a regional history in which unexplained aerial reports have surfaced in Soviet research programs and, more recently, in media and online claims. During the Soviet period, reports of anomalous...

Podcast

Pannier and Hillard’s Spotlight on Central Asia: New Episode Out Now

As Managing Editor of The Times of Central Asia, I’m delighted that, in partnership with the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, from October 19, we are the home of the Spotlight on Central Asia podcast. Chaired by seasoned broadcasters Bruce Pannier of RFE/RL’s long-running Majlis podcast and Michael Hillard of The Red Line, each fortnightly instalment will take you on a deep dive into the latest news, developments, security issues, and social trends across an increasingly pivotal region. This week, the team will be tracking the culmination of Bishkek's power struggle as charges are formally brought against Tashiyev, alongside a fresh wave of EU sanctions that look designed to make an example of one Central Asian state. We'll also break down the shutdown of a key Kazakh pipeline carrying oil to Europe, Russia's increasingly blunt statements on foreign military deployments across the region, Ashgabat's crackdown on Starlink connections in Turkmenistan, and the EU's push to turn Central Asia into a transit point for Afghans being deported back to Afghanistan. We'll also cover the spread of a new strain of foot-and-mouth disease tearing through the region. And for our main story, we turn to the mounting ecological crisis in the Caspian Sea, where falling water levels and worsening environmental pressures are becoming impossible for the region to ignore. On the show this week: Vadim Ni, co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea movement.

Aging Population

Kazakhstan’s Population Is Aging Rapidly as Demographic Pressures Mount

Kazakhstan’s population is aging rapidly, with the number of elderly citizens growing significantly faster than the child population as birth rates continue to decline. According to a study by analysts at Energyprom.kz, the country’s aging index has been steadily rising. In 2021, Kazakhstan had 26.7 elderly people for every 100 children under the age of 15. By 2025, that figure had increased to 32.9. The data suggests Kazakhstan is gradually entering a demographic phase in which the proportion of elderly citizens is growing much faster than the younger population. The trend is particularly pronounced in urban areas, where the aging index rose from 28.8 to 34.9 over four years. Rural areas remain relatively younger, though the index there also increased from 23.9 to 29.6. Researchers say the most difficult demographic situation is emerging in the country’s northern and eastern regions. The highest aging index was recorded in the North Kazakhstan Region at 84.1, followed by the East Kazakhstan Region at 80.7 and the Kostanay Region at 71.3. In practical terms, the number of elderly residents in these areas is approaching the number of children. High aging rates were also recorded in the Pavlodar, Karaganda, and Akmola regions. By contrast, Kazakhstan’s youngest demographic profiles remain concentrated in the southern and oil-producing regions. The lowest aging indexes were recorded in the Mangystau Region at 16.2, the Turkestan Region at 17.2, and the city of Shymkent at 17. Nevertheless, even these regions are showing gradual aging trends. Analysts say the primary driver of the shift is the changing balance between declining birth rates and the growing elderly population. Although Kazakhstan’s total population continues to increase, its demographic structure is becoming noticeably older. The number of children under the age of 14, after years of growth, has begun to decline. At the beginning of 2024 and 2025, the figure stood at around 5.9 million, but by early 2026 it had fallen to 5.8 million. At the same time, the number of Kazakhstanis aged over 65 continues to rise rapidly. Over the past decade, the elderly population increased from 1.2 million to 2 million people, an increase of nearly 60%. Additional pressure comes from falling birth rates. Kazakhstan’s total fertility rate dropped to 16.4 births per 1,000 people in 2025, compared to 23.5 in 2021, a decline of almost one-third in just a few years. The lowest birth rates are being recorded in the North Kazakhstan, Kostanay, and East Kazakhstan regions. However, even traditionally younger regions such as Turkestan and Mangystau are seeing fertility rates gradually decline. Experts warn that overall population growth is no longer compensating for changes in the country’s age structure. While the population is still increasing in absolute terms, the share of elderly citizens is rising much more rapidly. According to analysts, the trend is likely to place increasing pressure on Kazakhstan’s healthcare system, labor market, pension system, and social welfare infrastructure in the coming years.

Victory Day

Opinion: What May 9 Means to a Generation Without War Memories

One evening, sitting beside my grandmother, we opened an old photo album, the kind with thick pages and photographs tucked carefully beneath thin plastic sheets. We turned the pages slowly. At one photograph, she stopped. It showed her as a young girl beside a close relative she rarely speaks about, a man who never came home from the war. The mood changed almost instantly. For her, May 9 is not simply a date. It belongs to a family story shaped by absence, grief, and survival. For me, it is inherited. For many people of my generation, May 9 is no longer a memory of war itself, but a memory passed down by those who lived closer to it. That distance is changing the meaning of Victory Day in Kazakhstan and across much of Central Asia. The day still carries enormous symbolic weight, but the link between public commemoration and private family memory is becoming less direct. What older generations remember, younger generations are increasingly asked to learn. What Remains for Those Who Remember For older generations, May 9 remains deeply personal. It is tied to lives shaped by loss, names repeated year after year, stories retold within families, and the enduring presence of those who never returned. The meaning of the day is not abstract for people who lived through the war or grew up in its immediate aftermath. It is part of their family history. In many households, remembrance is expressed less through public slogans than through quieter acts: visiting memorials, keeping photographs, passing down names, or sharing stories that do not need much explanation. For those generations, the past has not fully receded. It remains close to the surface of the present. A Generation That Learns, Not Remembers For younger people, the connection is often weaker and less detailed. The war may still be respected, but it is no longer remembered in the same way. It is encountered through family fragments, school lessons, monuments, ceremonies, and public language rather than through the direct emotional force of lived experience. This generational gap is visible in recent polling. A 2025 survey by the Center for Social and Political Research “Strategy,” based on 1,100 respondents across nine regions of Kazakhstan, found that 46% of people aged 18-24 knew someone in their family had participated in the war but could not recall any details. Another 33% had no information at all. Among respondents over 55, only 13% reported similar uncertainty. The same survey found that many respondents could not identify a significant historical figure connected to the war, while nearly one in five could not name a single wartime event. These gaps suggest more than a decline in historical knowledge. They point to a weakening personal connection to what was once a defining collective experience. When Memory Exists Without Experience As lived experience gives way to inherited knowledge, remembrance changes form. Historical events are preserved through families, schools, state ceremonies, monuments, and media, but the emotional connection becomes harder to sustain. A...