More women, fewer children: how Kazakhstan's population is changing

Tengrinews.kz — The average age of Kazakhstan’s population continues to rise, and from the age of 42 onward, women outnumber men. At the same time, the share of elderly residents is increasing, while the youngest age groups are shrinking, according to data from the Bureau of National Statistics.

Kazakhstanis are getting older: average age reaches 32.5

In 2021, the average age of Kazakhstanis was 31.9 years. By 2025, it had risen to 32.5.

Women are older than men on average. In 2025, the average age of men was 30.9 years, while for women it was 34.1 years. The gap exceeded three years.

At the beginning of 2026, Kazakhstan had about 10 million men and nearly 10.5 million women. On average, there were 96 men for every 100 women.

However, this is not because more girls are born. On the contrary, among children under the age of nine, there are about 106 boys for every 100 girls. Men also slightly outnumber women among those aged 20 to 29.

Women outnumber men after age 42

The ratio changes after the age of 42: from this age onward, women begin to outnumber men. The gap widens rapidly in older age groups.

Among Kazakhstanis over 65, there are around 740,000 men and nearly 1.24 million women. This means there are about half a million more women than men in this age group.

The country has about 86,000 men and 212,000 women over the age of 80. Among Kazakhstanis aged over 100, there are 284 men and 1,039 women.

Women outnumber men in older age groups primarily because of the difference in life expectancy between men and women. In 2025, life expectancy for women was 79.8 years, compared with 72.19 years for men. The gap reached 7.61 years.

In other words, more boys are born, but men on average live significantly shorter lives than women. This is why the ratio shifts in older age groups.

Share of residents over 65 continues to grow

Not only is the ratio between men and women changing, but the overall age structure of the population is also shifting.

In 2009, residents aged over 65 accounted for 7.1 percent of Kazakhstan’s population. In 2020, their share reached 7.7 percent, and by the beginning of 2026 it had risen to 9.6 percent.

One common demographic threshold for population ageing is when people aged 65 and older make up 7 percent of the population. Kazakhstan crossed this threshold before 2009. Since then, the share of elderly residents has continued to increase.

Note: The ageing index shows how many people aged 65 and older there are for every 100 children under the age of 15. The higher the figure, the greater the number of elderly people relative to children.

In 2025, Kazakhstan’s ageing index stood at 32.9. This means there were almost 33 people aged over 65 for every 100 children under 15. A year earlier, the figure was 31.1.

Fewer children in the youngest age groups

Changes are also occurring at the base of the population pyramid.

At the beginning of 2026, four-year-old children remained the largest single-year age group in Kazakhstan, numbering 441,150. There were 330,819 children under the age of one.

This means there were around 110,000 fewer children under one than four-year-olds, a difference of about 25 percent.

So far, the decline in the birth rate that began after 2022 is most visible among children under the age of four. If the trend continues, kindergartens and schools will feel the effects first, followed later by colleges, universities and the labor market.

The increase in the population’s average age from 31.9 to 32.5 years may seem small. However, several processes lie behind this change: the share of elderly people is growing, women form a stable majority after the age of 42, and the youngest generations are becoming smaller.

Earlier, we reported that at the beginning of 2026, more than 2.9 million people in Kazakhstan were aged over 60, accounting for 14.2 percent of the population. At the same time, 465,300 Kazakhstanis in this age group continued to work.