Economic gains are unlocked by Kazakhstan’s working-age population growth

Nearly all societal support systems are impacted by the evolution of Kazakhstan’s demographic landscape: the labor and consumer markets, the education, healthcare and pension systems.
The first change over the past decade is the decrease of the proportion of working-age citizens within the population from 64% in 2011 to 57.7% in 2023. Also, the rise of the share of children from 26.1% to 31.2% and the increase of the share of the older generation from 9.9% to 11.4% have been recorded.
Nevertheless, the share of the working-age population has been declining slower in recent years due to a high birth rate the 2000s.
The second change is the decline of the share of women in the population structure (51.8% of women and 48.2% of men in 2011). A decrease by 0.6% was shown by the share of women by early 2023 due to the increasing number of citizens below working age with a higher rate of the male population (48.6% women and 51.4% men as of early 2023).
The third change is an aging population that the northeast and central regions of the country are facing due to low natural population growth and negative net migration. North Kazakhstan (18.6% at the beginning of 2023), East Kazakhstan (19.3%) and Kostanai (16.8%) have the highest proportions of elderly residents. On the contrary, the youngest populations can be found in the Turkistan and Mangystau regions.
It shows that the country’s current demographic situation is quite favorable and provides substantial internal resources for the labor market and the overall economy.
An economic advantage that a country can gain due to shifts in the age structure of its population is referred to by the concept of a “demographic dividend” or “demographic bonus”.
Notable examples of effectively leveraging the demographic dividend are offered by Southeast Asia in global practice. According to experts’ estimation, the “economic miracle” experienced by the East Asian Tigers, accounting for between one-quarter and two-fifths of their economic growth during the 1980s and 1990s, was significantly contributed to by this demographic advantage.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reports the soaring of the Republic of Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 2,200% from 1950 to 2008. Nevertheless, as the example of Brazil shows, favorable demographic trends do not always lead to GDP growth. Consequently, capitalizing on emerging development opportunities for addressing demographic challenges should be one of the main tasks of socio-economic policy.
This article was written by Anna Alshanskaya, the head of Department of Economic Policy and Analysis at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS).

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