Fertility Rates Falling across the World But Not in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 20 – Over the last three years, fertility rates – the number of children per woman per lifetime – have fallen across the world from 2.23 in 2022 to 2.19 in 2024 and are now below replacement levels almost everywhere including in Russia. But there is one region that is an exception: the countries of post-Soviet Central Asia.
    There, according to Moscow observer Konstantin Dvinsky, statistics show they have risen in four of the give countries over the last 20 years and so the population there will continue to rise and at least for some time be a source of migrant labors for other countries, such as Russia (iarex.ru/articles/143234.html).
    Between 2003 and 2023, fertility rates rose from 2.07 to 3.01 in Kazakhstan, from 2.5 to 3.5 in Uzbekistan, from 3.42 o 3.5 in Tajikistan and from 2.59 to 3.5 in Kyrgyzstan, reversing earlier declines and making Central Asia an outlier as far as demographic behavior of the world’s regions is concerned.
    According to Dvinsky, this is good news for Russia because it means that the Russian Federation will be able to count on Central Asia as a source of immigrant labor well into the future.