Birthrates Remain High and Life Expectancy Increasing in Central Asian Countries

Paul Goble    
    Staunton, Feb. 13 – In the final decades of the existence of the USSR, many observers focused on the rapid increase in the size of birthrates in the Muslim republics of Central Asia and increasing life expectancy there as well. Since that time, attention to those trends has declined, but they are almost as large now as they were 40 years ago.
    Now, the Bugin.info portal has provided the most recent data for four of the five countries there -- Turkmenistan is not included as is still often the case in such surveys – and the figures it gives are striking and suggest these countries will continue to grow rapidly and be the source of immigrant pressure well into the future (bugin.info/detail/rekordy-rozhdaemosti-i-dol/ru).
    Over the last year, the population of Tajikistan has grown 2.2 percent, with the number of births having increased by 4.8 percent and life expectancy risen as well. The population of Kazakhstan grew over the same period by 1.2 percent, with three percent more births in 2024 than in 2023.
    The population of Kyrgyzstan grew by two percent with five percent more births than a year earlier, and the population of Uzbekistan was up 1.6 percent over the same period. That overall growth is less than the rise in the number of births reflects outmigration rather than declines in life expectancy which in fact are increasing across the region.