How fast is Kazakhstan ageing, and who cares for its older people?

Abstract

Kazakhstan is younger than Russia or France, but its population is ageing. This study uses World Bank data for 1990-2025, based on the United Nations World Population Prospects, and projections to 2050 to measure how fast the share of people aged 65 and over is growing, and official statistics and a reported government statement on social care and pensions to ask who cares for older people. The share of people aged 65+ peaked at 7.48% in 2006 and fell to 6.38% in 2011, a pattern consistent with the small generation born during the Second World War reaching that age. It then rose to 9.0% in 2025, with growth speeding up from 0.10 to 0.27 percentage points a year. The yearly growth was highest in 2025 (0.35 points); in the projections it slows until the mid-2040s, and the share reaches 13.79% in 2050. The rise since 2011 is consistent with larger post-war generations reaching old age and with longer lives, while fertility, which rose strongly from the early 2000s, has worked against it. At the end of 2022, 13,624 age pensioners lived in organisations providing special social services, equal to 0.85% of the number of people aged 65+, and in 2025 home-care units served more than 28,000 older people living alone, equal to about 1.5% of the population aged 65+. Growth did accelerate in 2011-2025, but the projections do not support the author's expectation that it will keep accelerating. The figures show that formal care reaches only a small share of older people, which does not contradict her view that families provide most of the care.

Keywords: population ageing, older people, fertility, care homes, pensions, Kazakhstan

References

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How to cite

Murat Ameera How fast is Kazakhstan ageing, and who cares for its older people? // Central Asian Scientific Journal. – 2026. – No. 4(32), Vol. 2. – Pp. 67–71.