A demographic explosion?
At least that’s what the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan reported to Kazinform. The report claims that the population of Uzbekistan increased by 82 thousand people (0.3%) from January till April of this year, which brought the population to a total of 26.7 million people .
According to these official statistics, the population change in the first quarter of this year is 8.6% higher than those in the first quarter of 2006. Ferghana.ru says that if the population of Uzbekistan keeps rising at such a rate it may reach 27 million in 2008. If each quarter of the year gives similarly high results, the population of Uzbekistan may rise to 40 million by 2020.
Is Uzbekistan ready for such a demographic explosion? I think it is high time that the government of Uzbekistan considers this issue seriously as the countries population continues to increase so dramatically. How will the country cope with 40 million people with its existing infrastructure? Even with 26.7 million people the government of Uzbekistan is very slow in providing public services to its citizens.
A good example of an existing problem that would be multiplied is the school system. Uzbekistan recently made some changes in the old soviet style education system. Now students are only required to study until the ninth grade at a high school level, which upon completion gives them a certificate of an “incomplete secondary education.” If students do finish all of high school and want to go further with their education they must enter academic lyceums where they study for 2 more years. Experts say that this shift in education system is positive because it prepares students more satisfactorily for a university degree and gives them more specialised knowledge. The problem is that the number of academic lyceums is very low in comparison with the number of students who finish high school (a secondary education). As such not every student who wants to has a chance to enter academic lyceums. Another disadvantage of this is that it breeds corruption since every parent wants his/her child to get a complete education, and often enough try to reach these goals by bribing the examining board at academic lyceums.
With an increasing population the government must increase the number of academic lyceums. But this is only one problem affected by population; housing - building more apartment houses in cities and providing people with lands to build houses in villages is another grave concern. Municipal organs in the villages are very hesitant to hand over land for housing as they want to use it for cash crops such as cotton which in their perspective is more important than people’s lives.
on June 22nd, 2007 at 2:59 am
Wow. That’s very unexpected, considering that Russia is experiencing the opposite. I wonder what is driving the divergence in demographic trends. And average life expectancy in Uzbekistan? On the up or down?
on June 22nd, 2007 at 6:43 am
No, I would not call it unexpected. The mentality and culture in Uzbekistan dictates to have children more than two (there are five children in my family). The reason the population is rapidly increasing now is, I guess, the overcoming of the stresses of transition period after the collapse of USSR. Another reason is that, unlike in Russia, in Uzbekistan young people get married on average when they are 21-22 which makes their reproductive period last longer in their marriages. And divorce rate in Uzbekistan is very low. It is also due to the culture.
Official statistics of Russia says that since the collapse of the Soviet Union the population decreased to 4% (5.8 million). If it will keep decreasing that way, by 2050 the population may decrease to 20 million. Today the population of Russia is about 142 million.
Experts say that in order to fix the problem a birth rate to each woman in Russia must be on average 2.15, which today is 1.3. There may be different reasons for that. It may be economic and social stress of post soviet period which bears aggression and etc. Another thing is that young people get married comparatively late.
on June 22nd, 2007 at 7:14 am
To find out more about the average life expectancy in Uzbekistan visit the following link:
http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/CHHUZB/life/20050131_3
on June 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 am
I wonder in which areas normally the population of Uzbekistan grows, urban or rural? If that’s a case for rural areas, no wonder that the reason for continuous growth is bringing up a new generation of slaves for the sake of maintaining strategic cotton fields
on June 22nd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I wouldn’t invent a bike here, if I said that electricity shut downs play also an important role in this growth. Nowadays, especially in villages phased blackouts became usual and normal. Also baby-boomers of the beginning of 1980s are in the marriage age now. And then, add up other cultural reasons such as making babies as soon as possible after the marriage, and taboo topic of contraceptives etc etc.
For some additional info you may read also my blog.
on June 28th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I am bit skeptical on statistics coming from Uzbek government. Is it really true that population of Uzbekistan is growing? I could consider two major sources of population growth: natural growth and migration. We can easily drop out the second because I don’t think anyone would be interested in immigrating to Uzbekistan. Even if so, it will be statistically insignificant (i.e. Bulgarian soccer player). Emigration, however seasonal or short term, to CIS or western countries to earn some money might be even causing to decline of population. Recent decree on creating grounds to tax income earned by citizens abroad is clear proof that money transfers to Uzbekistan have grown so high that authorities want to capitalize on this.
Growth of population by natural means also can be discounted because we Uzbeks always got married young and have many children. Only if average decline in average wedding age leads to big boom. However, I would like to argue that health conditions are deteriorating in the country. Infant death has not decreased; neither average life expectancy is declining. Therefore, I would like to argue that this statistics about population boom is myth. Probably one of the statistics officers wanted to show that Uzbekistan is doing great. Our officials love to create the hoax stats just to say that “O’zbekiston kelajagi buyuk davlat”
on May 23rd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
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