Fertility in Kazakhstan: the nature of the “Kazakh phenomenon” and demographic challenges
The modern world, especially highly developed countries, is experiencing a birth rate crisis with all the negative socio-economic and political consequences that follow. Moreover, experts believe that it happened as a result of urbanization, industrialization, rising education levels and the trend towards gender equality, which erode traditional values and strengthen economic values. The paradox is that under the same conditions, the birth rate in Kazakhstan remains at a fairly high level...
We asked well-known domestic demographers - the head of the international research center Digital social research at VKTU, PhD in History Zhanna Aubakirova and the leading researcher of this center, Doctor of History Alexander Alekseenko - to explain this phenomenon (or anomaly) .
Feedback
- What is the demographic "trick" of Kazakhstan? Or is it also facing a birth rate crisis, only with some delay?
- The decline in the birth rate in the world is a consequence of progressive socio-economic changes, a kind of criterion of "development". UN classifications confirm this conclusion. According to them, the average total fertility rate (the average number of children born to one woman in her lifetime) in highly developed countries is 1.6, in developing countries – 2.5, in the least developed countries – 4.1. What is confusing is that the logic is built in the only possible line – modernization processes inevitably lead to a birth rate crisis.
In Kazakhstan, the total fertility rate (TFR) has been steadily growing since the beginning of the 21st century. If in 2000 it was 1.86, then in 2021 it was 3.32. Moreover, this is happening against the backdrop of an increase in the urban population, an increase in the proportion of people with higher and secondary specialized education, including women, an increase in life expectancy and other indicators, that is, everything that, it would seem, should lead to a decrease in the birth rate. However, it continues to remain at a high level.
- How can this be explained? What is the influence of the socio-economic realities of our country?
- Birth rate cannot always be linked to economic processes. Demographic relations significantly depend on the socio-cultural past, as well as on the degree of its "preservation" in our days. In other words, they should be considered not only as a consequence of socio-economic transformations, but also as part of cultural norms that have been formed over many centuries, enshrined in traditions, customs, religion and cannot change in a short period of time. That is why the history of the coexistence of traditional culture with the industrial vector of development of the state is of great importance, as well as how thoroughly representatives of a particular ethnic group were involved in the industrial context.
For example, a feature of Soviet Kazakhstan was the ethnic differentiation of the settlement system and socio-economic activity. The majority of the urban population and workers in industrial enterprises were representatives of European ethnic groups, primarily Russians. Even by the end of the 1980s, urbanization and industrialization had not affected the bulk of the Kazakhs. Their share among the city dwellers in our republic was then 26.6%. And this was the lowest level of representation of the titular population in the cities of the USSR. For comparison: a similar indicator for the Turkmens in Turkmenistan (we repeat, we are talking specifically about city dwellers) was 53.8%, for the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan - 53.7%, for the Tajiks in Tajikistan - 50.5%. The share of Kazakhs among those employed in industry was even smaller - 13% (in agriculture - 35%), while the share of Uzbeks among the industrial workers of the neighboring republic reached 53%.
After the collapse of the USSR, all the ethnically differentiated features of the development of Kazakhstan, which had been forming over a long period of time, began to concentrate in the representatives of the Kazakh ethnic group. Many components of the urban lifestyle were accepted in a ready-made form, without understanding the historical context in which these components developed. The development of social, mainly urban, statuses previously unknown to most Kazakhs led to the fact that to this day the accumulation of various variants of socio-demographic development continues. At the same time, a large family and a high birth rate are perceived by a significant part of the population as a cultural heritage and a national-patriotic idea, that is, outside the economic context.
In view of this, it is becoming increasingly unclear what type of reproductive behavior will develop in the conditions of socio-cultural uncertainty. One can only state a clear pattern: the more homogeneous the ethnic composition of the population of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, the higher the birth rate. But here it is important to understand whether such dynamics are a consequence of “liberation from polyethnicity”, as a result of which the historically established birth rates of Kazakhs, previously hidden in average statistical data, began to determine the statistical series. Or whether the birth rates of the Kazakh population reflect the socio-cultural, socio-economic realities of the sovereign state.
Parallel Eras
- Which of these two options does your research group lean towards?
- In order to see the origins of the modern birth rate trend, it is important to analyze the demographic behavior of the Kazakhs in a statistically observable retrospective. Namely, to consider three historical periods that differ in political, economic and cultural parameters - nomadic, Soviet and sovereign, which had a decisive influence on this behavior.
Thus, at present, the demographic ideal, the socio-cultural model of the family and the number of children in it have been transferred to the nomadic Kazakh society. But it is impossible to verify this on the basis of statistical data due to the lack of such. The facts of the widespread large families in that period are recorded in the folk epic, they are largely mythologized and hypertrophied, as with all peoples. Research by authors of different times testify to the catastrophic epidemiological situation in the steppe and high mortality, which implied the birth of a certain number of children in the family, which should "cover" the losses.
Yes, the high birth rate compensated for the mortality rate, but the natural increase of Kazakhs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was small and fluctuated within 0.7–1.0% per year. In the virtual absence of medicine, only a high birth rate could maintain the reproduction process at a more or less acceptable level.
The catastrophic events of the first decades of Soviet history (1920–1940s) significantly reduced the number of Kazakhs - the civil war, the famine of the 1920s, especially the famine of the 1930s, then the Great Patriotic War. But they did not break their socio-cultural core, which had a great influence on the reproduction processes in the future. Moreover, in sovereign times, demographic tragedies formed the basis of beliefs and calls for a high birth rate in order to restore and increase the Kazakh ethnic group.
The peculiarities of Kazakhstan's ethno-demographic development, in the formation of which the socio-economic factor played an important role, began to manifest themselves in the 1950s and 1960s. The migration influx from the European part of the USSR in the 1930s and 1960s was of great importance in their formation. Polyethnicity, constructed in a short time by political methods, became the reason for the emergence in Kazakhstan of parallel worlds with, we repeat, an ethnically differentiated settlement system (the village is predominantly Kazakh, the city is predominantly European) and employment structure (Kazakhs in agriculture, representatives of European ethnic groups in the industrial sector). The demographic reflection of such a "parallel" existence was the increasingly different birth rates among representatives of the main ethnic groups of the republic - primarily Kazakhs and Russians.
Thus, according to the 1989 census, 68.2% of Kazakh women had five or more children born in the 1950s and 1960s and who lived until the end of the 1980s. For Russian women, this figure is much lower – 8.2%. The average number of children born to one Kazakh woman during that period was 6.30, and to a Russian woman – 2.38.
As we believe, in the general Soviet "historical era" there was its own ethnically expressed "era", actually parallel to the industrial-urban one. Its peculiarity was a certain "conservation" of many traditional values. Accordingly, demographic relations among Kazakhs developed in the context of the Kazakh "historical era", their own "internal environment".
Thus, the trends related to birth rate were significantly different due to the ethnic differentiation of socio-cultural values influencing ideas about the family and the number of children in it.
Quantity is a guarantee of quality
- It turns out that the tradition of having many children among the Kazakhs was born in the second half of the 20th century?
- Yes. And precisely due to the socio-economic policy of the USSR, the polyethnicity of Soviet Kazakhstan. As has already been noted, this policy, related to urbanization, urban lifestyle, industrial production and the corresponding employment structure, did not destroy the birth rate traditions of the indigenous population, since modernization functions were performed mainly by representatives of European ethnic groups. The Kazakhs were in an artificial socio-economic and demographic environment, not recorded by average statistical indicators.
One of the features of this artificial environment was that the decrease in mortality did not become a factor significantly influencing the birth rate, did not lead to its significant decrease, as happened with many other peoples. Family and child planning in the case of "Soviet Kazakhs" was determined by other criteria. The rule that "the desire for quality of life leads to a reduction in the number of children" did not work. Moreover, "quantity" actually guaranteed "quality".
- What do you mean?
- The fact is that a large number of children did not bring excessive material expenses to the family. Having many children was encouraged by the state both materially (social payments) and morally (medals, titles, publications in the media, etc.). At the same time, medicine, education (preschool, school, higher) were free. Children from large families, especially those living in rural areas, were given benefits for studying at universities.
Thus, during the period from 1960 to 1990, due to the evolution of the age structure caused by the population explosion of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, the number of students of Kazakh nationality increased by 4.9 times. And in 1980-1989, the growth in the number of students by 98.8% was provided by Kazakh youth. At the end of the Soviet period of history, according to the 1989 census, 15.0% of urban and 7.0% of rural Kazakhs over 15 years old had higher education (while among Russians - 12.6% and 4.7%, respectively). It should not be forgotten that in the village, in a personal subsidiary farm, children were irreplaceable assistants...
Thus, in the second half of the 20th century, traditional birth rates found a second wind. The socio-economic and moral-ideological preferences of the socialist state not only went well with them, but also strengthened them, made them more stable. In the 1950s-1980s, an image was formed: large families are respected and worthy. Although to a large extent this was a rational choice, a strategy based on socio-economic benefits, which went well with traditional socio-cultural attitudes. Simply put, having many children provided a certain material wealth, honor and respect for parents, and the opportunity to provide a decent future for children.
The peculiarity is that all these preferences were assessed through the prism of everyday life, in a rather narrow circle of the rural environment. The role of the state (as a cause-and-effect relationship) was not actually perceived at this level, state laws, decrees, etc. were some kind of abstraction and were not considered as the reason for the increase in the number of children in the family. Largely because personal, semi-natural subsidiary farming, economically relatively independent, was of great importance in the village. Therefore, the connection with state structures was felt there to a much lesser extent than in the cities.
As a result, a conviction was formed that having many children is an old Kazakh folk tradition, a cultural code of the ethnic group, and reproductive family practices were built on this basis. The city, industrial development, etc. had a weak influence on Kazakh society. The traditional pre-industrial segment successfully existed in the context of the industrial-industrial vector of state development, which was carried out by other ethnic groups. The Soviet reality, in fact, strengthened the traditional demographic potential, more fully revealed its possibilities. On this socio-cultural basis, the majority of Kazakhs entered the period of sovereign development.
Under pressure from the city
- How did the demographic situation change after gaining sovereignty?
- Kazakhstan "inherited" from the Soviet period a Europeanized way of life, urban socio-economic infrastructure and other components of the "parallel world". But the "sovereign demographic system" structure began to form on a different political basis. One of its urgent tasks was the increase in the number and proportion of Kazakhs in the population, overcoming the "ethnodemographic disproportions of past decades".
As a result, within a short time (1989-2021), the ethnic composition of the republic's population, including the urban population, changed dramatically. Emigration halved the number of urban Russians, urbanization increased the number of urban Kazakhs by 3.7 times. If in 1989 35.7% of Kazakhs lived in cities, then in 2021 – 58.2%. Yesterday’s rural residents have become the dominant majority of the Kazakh city.
The rapid overcoming of the distance from the agrarian traditional society to the urban society led to the fact that the "maturation", preparation for a new way of life took place for the majority of the Kazakh population already directly in the Russified city. And this was a serious threat to the Kazakh language, culture, traditional values in general. Therefore, it is quite logical that, having found itself under pressure from the urban environment, traditional culture began to perform protective functions to preserve the ethnic foundations of the people, becoming an integrating factor in nation-building in sovereign Kazakhstan.
Thus, in the post-Soviet period, the creation of a new demographic system based on the Kazakh ethnic group began. The evolution of the ethnic composition of the population led to the fact that the components that formed the characteristics of demographic development in the second half of the twentieth century gradually began to disappear. Moreover, the factor of ethnic differentiation of the settlement system, economic activity, which was of decisive importance for the preservation of the cultural values of the Kazakh ethnic group, lost its relevance. The period of conservation in the village is quickly passing, the Kazakhs occupy key social niches, including in the cities of the republic. At the same time, the destruction of a closed specific environment is potentially the most dangerous time for traditional culture.