ETHNODEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES IN THE EAST KAZAKHSTAN REGION IN THE EARLY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE: SOCIO-POLITICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of formation of the ethnodemographic situation in East Kazakhstan during the years of independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The sources for the preparation of the article were statistical data characterizing the processes of population reproduction in the period 1991-2022. It turned out that the algorithm of the functioning of the demographic system in the east of the country was largely a consequence of the peculiarities of the existence of Kazakhs in Soviet times. A distinctive feature was that before the independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, more than 60% of the ethnic group lived in rural areas, preserving traditional variants of demographic behavior. The urban population was based on European peoples who found themselves in Eastern Kazakhstan mainly as a result of external migrations. In the 1990s, a significant part of the European component of the population emigrated. In the second decade of the XXI century. the role of external migrations (both emigration and immigration) has been minimized, the dynamics of the population is determined by the processes of reproduction of the Kazakh ethnic group, which has become the majority of the population in the republic, including in cities. Nevertheless, the legacy of the Soviet era still has an impact on the functioning of the sovereign demographic system. First of all, it manifests itself through the evolution of the age structure of the Kazakhs, determined by the demographic explosion in the middle of the twentieth century. A feature of the modern ethnodemographic situation is the rapid urbanization of autochthons, mainly young people. As a result, the dynamics of reproduction indicators of the urban population is much higher than in rural areas. Thus, over the years of independence of the Republics of Kazakhstan, a demographic system has been developing, functioning on an autochthonous basis, and its parameters are gradually being formed.