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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
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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