Kazakhstan: COVID baby boom shows little sign of abating
Authorities have failed to cater for this growing army of children by building enough schools, however.
With little else to do while stuck at home during COVID-19 lockdowns, people in Kazakhstan took to making babies.
But as the pandemic appears to be in the rear window, the baby boom shows no sign of abating.
According to research by EnergyProm, a Kazakhstan-based think tank, a spike in births had already occurred in the year of the pandemic. Almost 427,000 babies were born in 2020, a trend that could hardly be attributed to the pandemic. That record was again broken last year, however, when around 446,500 new Kazakhs entered the world. That was 11 percent more than the number recorded in 2019, EnergyProm found.
And the boom is still in full force. In the first quarter of this year alone, around 95,600 birth certificates were issued.
The figures are notable even in proportionate terms. If there were only 149 new-borns per 10,000 Kazakhs in 2001, that number rose to 235 in 2021.
Large families are mainly responsible for this surge. Fully 28 percent of the babies born in 2021 were the fourth or further down in the line of children born to the same family. Fully 95 babies were born in families of 10 or more children.
As EnergyProm notes, this bumper crop of new citizens will require the authorities to focus their thoughts further on future demand for housing.
One solution devised by the authorities is the Bakytty Otbasy housing program being implemented by Otbasy Bank, a subsidiary of the state-run Baiterek Holding company. The program is designed to aid low-income and large families and the parents of disabled children get access to mortgages at interest rates as low as 2 percent. Around 70 billion tenge ($166 million) were earmarked for the program in 2021.
Although 2021 saw a particularly steep one-year uptick in births, the trend is generally in line with what Kazakhstan has seen since the early 2000s. Only a few years in that period have not seen a new record set. Demography experts attribute this to historic factors – namely, the earlier baby boom of the late 1980s, which was in turn fueled by the growth in population seen in the post-war decades. That last generation is now swelling the ranks of retirees, perhaps making it a relief that Kazakhstan, unlike Western Europe and Japan, which are bedevilled by birth rates well below replacement level, is still churning out future workers and taxpayers.
While the demographic trend has long been clear, the government still managed to get badly caught short in catering to the growing population of children.
At the start of the academic year now ending, media reported that the country was short of 225,000 spots in schools. By one estimate, that figure could grow to 1 million by 2025 unless urgent measures – specifically, the construction of 800 new schools – are adopted. In the meantime, overcrowded schools are coping by educating children in shifts.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.