The southern and western regions of Kazakhstan are “champions” in terms of birth rate. But instead of staying to live in their home regions, many young people from these agricultural and industrial regions move to big cities such as Almaty and Astana, exacerbating the already high competition for jobs there, Orda.kz reports.
In his Tengenomika Telegram channel, economist Ruslan Sultanov writes that in the first half of 2025, the population of Kazakhstan grew by 96,700, mainly due to the Turkestan and Mangistau regions and the city of Shymkent.
“These regions provide the main demographic growth due to the young age structure of their population and high reproductive rate. However, economic opportunities there are limited, which has turned the south into the main donor of labor resources,” Sultanov writes.
Big cities remain the main centers of attraction, with internal migration increasing by 20.6% compared to the first half of 2024. Most internal migrants have moved to live and work in Astana (36.8 thousand), followed by Almaty and Shymkent. The explanation is simple: large cities offer more job opportunities for both skilled and unskilled workers.
“Megacities act as centers for the redistribution of human capital, ‘pulling’ labor resources from the regions with a high birth rate but a weak economic base,” Sultanov writes.
The economist notes that the situation when young people from the regions flock to megacities en masse can lead to negative consequences.
“From the point of view of the labor market, such a situation increases the concentration of human capital in a narrow set of agglomerations, which increases competition for jobs in big cities, but leaves a shortage of personnel in industrial and agricultural regions,” Sultanov explains.
In the long term, this can lead to economic problems.
