Aigul Zabirova,

Chief Research Fellow  at the Kazakhstan Institute

for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Evening. The television is on. Ministers, deputies, economists, athletes and bloggers appear in the news. Then come the advertisements. Mom, who is a scientist? The mother fell silent for a second. Should she show the child a portrait from a school textbook? But the person in that photograph lived a hundred years ago, and he was not from Kazakhstan. Should she name a physicist or biologist known around the world? But the child was not asking about the history of science. He was asking about a person who lives today. What is his name? What does he do? Why is he almost never talked about? And suddenly it turns out that answering is not so simple.

You can ask the same question not to a child, but to adults. Their answers would be no less strange. A teacher would name a classic from the school curriculum. A capable student would explain what peer review is, and then fall silent when asked to name three living scientists from our own country. A neighbor would answer faster than anyone else, because he has heard that science is now receiving money, and quite a lot of it. Notice what happened. The child was asking about a person. But the adults, in giving their answers, spoke about the dead, about diploma defense procedures and about funding. There is no living scientist in any of the answers.

Science has money. It has no voice. Supporting science and hearing it are not the same thing. One can build a laboratory, open a university and award grants. All of this is necessary. But one may still never meet the people who work there. For most people, science will remain a line in the budget. After all, the child did not ask how much had been allocated to it. He asked who a scientist is.

Everyone talks about science here. Science itself almost does not speak. Reports are made about it, it is financed, it is discussed by officials and journalists. But all of these are conversations about science in someone else’s words. The scientist himself is almost unheard in this stream. And the child asked precisely about him.

Let us listen to the skeptic who says that conferences for scientists lost their meaning long ago. Why do we need expensive halls, flights and hotels when online formats exist? If the goal is to bring science closer to people, a conference looks like a questionable tool. The hall is filled with the same scientists. They speak to one another. There are almost no outsiders there.

And yet the skeptic is wrong. He judges a conference as though its task were to immediately deliver scientific knowledge to society. But a conference has another function. Any scientific idea is born in solitude. But it becomes science only after meeting its equals. When objections are raised against it, when its weak point is noticed and when it is forced to search for a more precise answer. Science, in general, develops not from agreement, but from debate. This is exactly why conferences exist. Scientific thought does not go directly from the laboratory to the public. First, it passes through its own community. Only then does it become knowledge that can be trusted.

And this is not only about us. Where do you think science is trusted the most? The answer turns out to be unexpected. According to the largest international study, the top five countries in terms of trust in science included Egypt, India, Nigeria, Kenya and Australia[i]. The authors tested the most obvious explanations, such as levels of GDP, spending on education, scientific literacy and academic freedom. None of them explained why trust in science is higher in some countries than in others. This means that it is not only about money, education or the scale of the scientific system. Trust appears where people encounter science in their own lives. Where they understand why it is needed and what it does for them.

What, then, are people lacking? Openness. The same international study showed that people rate scientists lowest precisely in terms of their willingness to explain their work and be open to society. Thus, 83% of respondents believe that scientists should talk more with society about science. What does this mean? People are waiting for science to speak to them.

The pandemic became a moment when, in many countries of the world, science found itself at the center of public attention, and trust in scientists generally increased. But our region turned out to be an exception. According to the Wellcome Global Monitor[ii], in the ‘Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia’ region, attention to science practically did not increase, while trust in scientists from one’s own country even declined. While people in other countries were watching science in action, its voice sounded much quieter here. However public space is never empty. If it is not filled by scientific knowledge, it is filled by other explanations. Sometimes accurate. Sometimes not. But almost always louder and more confident.

In my own childhood, there was an answer to the question about a scientist. A scientist was someone who had discovered something. Someone who heals, someone who counts the stars, someone who knows how the world works. Every child had this answer; it did not need to be searched for. It simply sounded all around us. Now there is no answer. Not because scientists have disappeared. They exist, they work and they make discoveries. But the place where this answer used to sound have become empty. The channel is occupied by another voice. And the child who today asks who a scientist is will grow up with the answer he receives. If the only available answer is ‘science is being given money’, he will learn that science is about money. Trust is not inherited this way.

On June 24, a new Law on Science was signed, creating new conditions for the development of Kazakhstan’s science[iii]. Science cities, modern research centers, expanded rights and social guarantees for scientists, and a closer connection between research and production are important steps for the development of the scientific system. But trust has a different nature. Trust cannot be adopted together with a law or included in a state program. It arises when society knows its scientists, hears them and clearly understands why they are needed.

Evening. The television is on again. And again, the child asks: Mom, who is a scientist? The answer appears when science has its own voice. When a teacher returns from a conference not with a certificate, but with a new idea. When a journalist speaks not about the size of a grant, but about a discovery. When a neighbor says not ‘science has been given money again’, but ‘can you imagine, our scientists have discovered…’ This is why society needs the voice of science. Because one day it becomes the answer to the simplest question a child can ask. And as long as science reaches the screen as a single figure, the mother truly has nothing to answer. Not because there are no scientists. But because they are almost unheard.

[i] Cologna et al. (2025). ‘Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries.’ Nature Human Behaviour.

[ii] https://wellcome.org/reports/wellcome-global-monitor-covid-19/2020

[iii] https://www.akorda.kz/ru/glavoy-gosudarstva-podpisan-zakon-respubliki-kazahstan-po-voprosam-nauki-naukoemkih-territoriy-socialnogo-obespecheniya-obrazovaniya-zdravoohraneniya-i-voinskoy-sluzhby-245557

Сообщение Mom, Who Is a Scientist? появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

On May 16, 2026, the President signed the Decree ‘On Measures for the Development of Reading Culture and the Formation of a Reading Nation.’ What time horizon is this decision designed for, and why can it not be evaluated by the standards of an electoral cycle? We will try to answer these questions.

Every state decision has its own term. A road is built in two years. A school is built in a year and a half. A government program is launched for a five-year plan. These terms fit within human attention. They can be started and finished. They can be verified. Finally, they can be reported on. The Decree on the development of reading and the formation of a reading nation operates in a different kind of time. Its term is a generation.

To understand what the Decree is about, we must answer one question. A literate nation and a reading nation. Are they the same thing or not? At first glance, it seems they are. In reality, these are two different states of society. Literacy means the ability to read a text, recognize letters, put words together, and understand the meaning of what is written on a package, in an instruction, or in a news headline. A reading nation is built differently. It is a community of people who think about themselves through reading. They encounter in literature words about their own lives. Then people use these words in their conversations about work, family, country, and choice. Between the two states lies a gulf. The Decree is addressed precisely to that gulf.

The presidential Decree takes on exactly such a horizon. This is visible in the design of the Decree. The Decree does not announce a ‘Year of the book’ or a ‘Month of reading’. It declares a long-term institutional program with libraries, school curricula, support for publishers and translators, and infrastructure for writers. The state in fact acknowledges that what must happen will not happen quickly. Therefore, it must begin now, without waiting for the moment when the result will be urgently needed.

But here an attentive reader will raise a fair question. We have already had so many programs supporting cultures, languages, and literature, he will say. Some of them ended with spent budgets and reports, after which little changed in real reading habits. So what? Why should this Decree work differently? The question is correct. The answer is not that the current decision is fundamentally better conceived. The answer is that it is differently visioned in terms of horizon.

Programs of the previous generation reported on results by the end of their term. Any program obliged to show a result within a year inevitably begins to imitate one. Coverage numbers grow. Events are held. Reports are submitted. And in actual reading practice, nothing changes. A program designed for a generation cannot imitate a result. It has no intermediate reporting point at which imitation would be profitable. It has a different contract with time.

But the most interesting thing lies elsewhere. It lies in the question. Why a reading nation in the first place?  Every society needs its own language for understanding itself. That language is born in literature. A writer finds the precise word for how his contemporary lives. Then the word leaves the book and enters daily speech, kitchen conversations, public debates, and the way a person thinks about his own life. Without its own literature, a country speaks about itself in someone else’s words. And so, it also makes decisions in someone else’s coordinate system.

The paradox is that this language is already being produced in Kazakhstan. Contemporary Kazakh literature has changed noticeably over the past twenty years. Our writers write about life in the city, about women’s experience, about the gap between aul and city, about anxiety, about choice, about what it means to be oneself in a country that is still searching for its own language. The hero of this prose is no longer the epic bearer of a ready-made truth. He is a person of transition, living between several worlds at once. In one expert report prepared for KazISS, the current state of literature is described by a paradoxical formula. Literature without a reader. Novels and novellas are being written. Writers are working. Important and necessary topics exist. But the connection between literature and society grows weaker. Literature in Kazakhstan continues to produce meanings. Yet the ways these meanings circulate among people have weakened. So, what is the issue?

This gap has a cause. For older generations, meanings and language came through family, school, and library. Today they come through the feed. A young Kazakhstani lives in a vast flow of notifications, videos, comments, likes, and algorithmic recommendations. The book does not disappear in this environment. But it stops reproducing itself on its own. Earlier, a long text was an unavoidable part of growing up, because there were almost no other channels of long meaning. Today, a long text competes with platforms built on high speeds, fragmentation, and constant switching. In this competition literature loses not because it is worse, but because it requires an effort that the environment no longer reproduces automatically. This is why the Decree speaks not of a return to the old library model. It speaks of libraries of a new format, digital platforms, and reading infrastructure in conditions of developing artificial intelligence. The state understands that reading in its former shape will not return. The question is how to embed long text into digital modernity, rather than to oppose one to the other.

The Decree on the development of reading, among other things, also invests in the production of a society’s own language of self-description. Not because the state will write books. The state does not write them and cannot. The investment is in building an environment in which Kazakhstani literature can be read, discussed, noticed, and supported.

A separate question is how timely such decisions are. The President’s Decree comes at a moment when society has passed the stage of basic arrangement. A new level of tasks is emerging. The quality of public debate. The quality of the decisions made. The capacity of society to discuss complex matters without oversimplification. All these tasks rest on a mass ability to read complex texts. Earlier it would have been premature. Later we would have had to catch up with losses.

Decisions about reading almost never look spectacular. They do not produce a quick picture. They do not generate loud headlines. They do not fit the format of a campaign promise. Their strength lies elsewhere. It lies in changing the language in which a society will think about its own life twenty and thirty years from now. And here lies the difficulty of the Decree. It is designed for people most of whom do not yet vote, and some of whom are not yet born. And it is being adopted by people who will not live to see the result. This is a rare kind of state decision. It is not for us. It is about us.

Сообщение А rare kind of state decision появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

98.6% of Kazakhstanis agree that hard work should be rewarded. For 92.2% of respondents, it matters that their parents are proud of them. 91.6% evaluate science and technology positively. 89.4% believe that the more equality there is, the fewer problems there are.

A sociologist, looking at data like this, expects something to tip the scales. Expects a core to emerge among the values, something a person would be willing to sacrifice the rest for. There is no core here. There is uniformly high agreement with everything at once.

How is that possible? When the question about freedom is paired with equality, 63.3% choose freedom. When freedom is paired with security, the majority chooses security. This is not a contradiction in the data. This is the data. What takes shape in these numbers is a society for which everything matters. The question is what stands behind that.

The first explanation sociology reaches for sounds reassuring. It is a change. A transition, political scientists would say. Cultural theorists would say that old values are still holding on but new ones have already arrived. Wait a little and it will all settle.

The data do not confirm this. If it were a transition, we would see a generational gap. Young urban graduates would show one profile, older rural generations another. But a young banker in Almaty and his grandmother near Shymkent give similar answers. Not identical ones, of course, they live in different worlds. But the configuration is the same. This is not a transition. A transition implies that one thing displaces another. Here nothing displaces anything.

Ten years ago, I held in my hands a job offer from a foreign university. The kind of thing you dream about in graduate school, in doctoral programs, when you imagine how life might unfold. The first thought was about the dream. The second was, what will my mother say? Not how she would react, or how I could explain leaving. Specifically, what she would say. As if a verdict had already been delivered somewhere and all I had to do was hear it. These two voices did not argue with each other. They simply coexisted, from different worlds, in different languages, and neither one intended to yield to the other. I left. But that does not mean one voice won.

I think we are witnessing not change but coexistence. Inside the person, several voices operate simultaneously. The pre-Soviet one, where family is what you live for. The Soviet one, where work was sacred and everyone was equal on paper. The post-Soviet one, with its instinct for security. The post-independence one, with its language of success and personal initiative. These voices did not replace each other and did not arrange themselves into a hierarchy. They learned to run in parallel, and the person learned to move between them.

This is what is invisible in a questionnaire but stands behind its numbers. When a Kazakhstani answers a question, they do not choose which voice to answer from. All voices answer at once. That is why 98.6% favor rewarding hard work and 92.2% favor parents being proud. The first number comes from the market culture, the second from the pre-Soviet one. And both tell the truth about the same person. Poland, Turkey, and South Korea went through a similar coexistence. But in Kazakhstan there are more voices and the distance between them is greater. The distance from tribal memory to the post-Soviet market, four fundamentally different eras, was covered in just one hundred years. The capacity to hold all of them simultaneously without experiencing contradiction is not confusion and not immaturity. In sociology, this condition has a name, ambivalence. It is something the person has learned. At the level of everyday life.

Then what the answer ‘everything matters to me’ means becomes clear. It is not an evasion of choice. And it is not a contentless “yes” to everything at once. It is a fairly precise description of how a person is put together inside. “Several voices genuinely operate in them at the same time, and none of them is in charge. When a person says that family and success and stability and freedom all matter, they are not confused. They are telling you how their priorities actually work. Not a weakness and not immaturity. A language in which society describes itself while another language does not yet exist.

From this follows not a conclusion but a clarification. The Kazakhstani for whom everything matters is not a person without priorities. This is a person whose priorities are organized differently from what we have come to expect. Not a hierarchy, but several voices operating at the same time. And then a question arises. If this is a stable pattern rather than a moment of transition, how do we speak about it more precisely? Not to explain this person. But to hear them. To really hear not one but all of their voices at once.

Сообщение When All the Voices Answer появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

Eighty-six percent of Kazakhstanis identify themselves as believers [1]. This figure alone suggests that religious identity in Kazakhstan has become a widespread social norm. But sociology does not stop at the first number. The next question is: how do people actually practice their faith? Here the picture becomes considerably more complex: while the majority of respondents observe religious holidays, a much smaller share engage in regular prayer, and only a minority attend mosque on a regular basis.

These findings do not contradict one another. Rather, they reflect different levels of religious life — from symbolic belonging and cultural participation to everyday practice and institutional involvement. Each of these levels carries its own social function and internal logic. To understand how this configuration of religiosity emerged in Kazakhstan, we need to go back three decades.

After the collapse of the USSR, society faced an unexpected problem: who to be? The answer to ‘Who am I?’ disappeared along with Soviet identity and the state that had produced it. Kazakh identity required language, traditions, a cultural code, all things that decades of Soviet modernization had placed out of reach for many, especially urban, Kazakhs. Islam offered a way out, not as a rigid system of prescriptions, but as an accessible language of self-definition. To call oneself a Muslim meant answering ‘Who am I?’ simply, clearly, and with dignity.

This does not, of course, erase the spiritual dimension of religion. For many Kazakhstanis, faith has become a personal, profound experience that requires no public confirmation. What the data show is that Islam performs several functions simultaneously, both spiritual and identificational. Both are genuine. Both matter. Sociologists call this cultural religiosity, religion functioning primarily as a sense of belonging. A person observes holidays, upholds traditions, identifies with the faith. This is a complete form of religious life, not a surrogate for one.

In the Kazakhstani context, it is historically organic: steppe Islam was never rigidly institutionalized. It spread through oral tradition, family practices, and cultural ritual rather than through the strict discipline of the mosque. This is likely why 88.6% of Kazakhstanis support state religious policy while simultaneously 84.5% believe the country should remain a secular state. This is not a contradiction but a reflection of the Kazakhstani model, in which religion as cultural identity coexists comfortably with a secular state. This, in fact, is how most Kazakhstanis understand religion.

Sociological analysis allows us to identify three forms of religiosity coexisting in contemporary Kazakhstan. The first, cultural religiosity, is the most widespread. A person considers themselves a believer, participates in holidays, upholds traditions, but religious norms do not necessarily govern their everyday behavior. This is not half-hearted faith but a distinct form in which religiosity functions primarily as a symbolic marker of identity.

The second form, practicing religiosity, involves daily prayer, regular mosque attendance, and observance of prescribed norms. Here belief and behavior are more tightly bound.

The third, reflexive religiosity, is the most complex. Here religion becomes a language. Through religious categories, people discuss justice, morality, cultural identity. Religion enters public discourse not as dogma but as a framework for making sense of what is happening. All three forms coexist within one society, and often within one person.

Religion in Kazakhstan is becoming a language. Through it, society describes itself, draws moral boundaries, and explains ongoing change. And this language is multi-layered. For some it is expressed in daily prayer, for others in the observance of holidays, for others still in a simple sense of belonging to a tradition. All these levels exist simultaneously, and together they form what might be called the Kazakhstani model of religiosity. Not a copy of a Middle Eastern model, not Soviet atheism in reverse, but something grown from its own history and its own experience.

[1] Empirical data were taken from the analytical report Assessment of State Religious Policy in Kazakhstan, prepared by the research company MLGroup in 2024 at the request of the Committee for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan. A total of 6,000 respondents took part in the survey, with 1,500 people surveyed in each quarter of 2024. The survey included respondents over the age of 18 from 17 regions and 3 cities of republican significance — Astana, Almaty, and Shymkent.

Сообщение Religion as Identity: Why Kazakhstanis Believe in Their Own Way появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

Aigul Zabirova,

Chief Research Fellow

 KazISS under the President of the RK

More and more Kazakhstanis say that everything matters. This is not an inability to choose, but a structural shift, social life no longer organizes itself around a single answer.

Sometimes sociological data does more than reveal trends, it makes us, as sociologists, pause. Look more closely. And even feel a sense of surprise.
This is precisely such a case.

When examining responses to questions about the importance of life values, one is struck by an almost complete consensus. Nearly everything is considered important, and not just important, but very important. For instance, 90% of respondents say that being independent is ‘very important, 91% emphasize taking care of oneself, 92% value being faithful to a partner, and 89% stress loyalty to their country[1].  

Family, children, responsibility, and personal development all rank highly.
At some point, you find yourself asking: where is the choice? After all, if something becomes more important, shouldn’t something else recede? But that is not what we observe here. Kazakhstanis affirm multiple priorities at once:
–being independent (90%),

–having children (87%),

–being married (81%),

–pursuing personal development (81%),

– and taking responsibility (85%).

And it does not appear as a contradiction. Rather, it feels like a natural state.
Why? Because today these values are no longer perceived as mutually exclusive. This is no longer an ‘either–or’ logic, but a logic of combination: one can be independent and have a family, build a career while seeking work–life balance, pursue personal development while caring for others.’ This is becoming a new, and increasingly common, way of organizing life in the 21st century. If we look more closely, values in the past were more rigid: family or career, tradition or modernity. Today, these boundaries have become blurred.
Individuals increasingly inhabit multiple states at once. This is not a conflict. It is an overlay, and one that is becoming normalized.

It is precisely here that sociologists begin to sense a deeper shift,
we are no longer dealing simply with a set of values, but with a transformation of social character itself. If we try to describe this new character in simple terms, it is a person who wants to rely on themselves, but not to be alone. They do not abandon the family, yet no longer dissolve into it.
They aspire to a career, while 87% say it is important to maintain a balance between work and personal life.

A similar pattern emerges when it comes to responsibility.
On the one hand, people increasingly emphasize independence and self-realization.
On the other, moral commitments remain highly significant: loyalty to a partner (92%), loyalty to one’s country (89%), and personal responsibility (85%). In other words, individuals are becoming more independent, but no less connected.

There is another dimension that further complicates the picture: digital life.
The digital world has become the norm, yet it is also beginning to feel exhausting.
This is a distinctly contemporary experience. While 74% consider it important to develop digital skills, 46% emphasize the importance of being able to disconnect from the Internet entirely.

Perhaps the question is not what Kazakhstanis want, but what lies behind this desire to have everything. Is it freedom of choice, or freedom from the need to choose? A society that wants everything at once may be allowing itself, perhaps for the first time, to imagine without limits. Or its value system may still be in the process of taking shape. Or it may be a society that is in no hurry to make a final choice, having already learned the cost such choices entail. The data does not give a definitive answer, but it clearly poses the question.

What kind of social reality is taking shape here? When we bring the full picture together, a relatively clear image emerges. This is a person who does not make a hard choice between the old and the new, but holds them together. We are witnessing a shift toward a condition in which different dimensions of life coexist simultaneously. People are not willing to ‘trade’ family for career, or stability for freedom. And perhaps the most essential question today is no longer what it should be, but whether we are ready to recognize it.

[1]The survey dated 07/11/12/2025, commissioned by KazISS, 8,000 respondents. Respondents over the age of 18 from 17 regions of the country and big cities Astana, Almaty and Shymkent took part in the survey.

Сообщение When Everything Matters: Rethinking Social Character in Kazakhstan появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

Kazakhstan is experiencing one of the most significant social shifts in its modern history. The historic nature of this moment lies in the fact that Kazakhstan, a country with deep rural roots, is gradually becoming an urban society. Just a few decades ago, a substantial share of the population lived in rural areas, whereas today cities have become centers of education, employment, and economic activity. Demographic statistics clearly reflect the growth of the urban population. Thus, the share of urban residents in Kazakhstan has been steadily increasing: as of the beginning of 2025, two-thirds of the country’s population (63%) already lived in cities.   

When urbanization is discussed, the focus is often placed on the burden on schools and hospitals, transport infrastructure, and the need to create jobs. What is often overlooked is that urbanization represents a natural stage in the development of modern society. It is precisely this process that shapes human capital, fosters entrepreneurship, and creates new economic opportunities. Across the world, cities serve as engines of economic growth. According to estimates by international organizations, more than half of the global population now lives in urban areas, and this share continues to rise. UN experts project that by 2050 the proportion of urban residents could reach 70% of the world’s total population. It is in cities that universities, research centers, enterprises, and new labor markets are concentrated. The urban environment creates conditions for knowledge exchange, the emergence of new professions, and the development of entrepreneurship. Kazakhstan is gradually becoming part of this global trend.

The history of urbanization in Kazakhstan has its own specific features. During the Soviet period, migration to cities was significantly restricted by various mechanisms, including the system of residential registration. After independence, changes in the agricultural sector played a key role, reducing the need for a large labor force in rural areas. As a result, the country became more mobile, and the population began migrating to cities where new employment opportunities were available. However, while in the early years of independence moving from a village or a small town to a large city was primarily associated with job search, migration mobility strategies are now evolving.

Today, for many families, moving to a city is more often an investment. Cities provide access to education, diverse labor markets, and professional environments. Parents seek to give their children opportunities that will allow them to secure a more stable position in the future. This is why cities attract young people striving to obtain education and professional skills. At the beginning of 2025, 3,666,998 people aged 14–28 were living in Kazakhstan’s cities, while the number of students increased from 575.5 thousand in 2020 to 624.5 thousand at the beginning of the 2024/2025 academic year. Clearly, urbanization is becoming an important family strategy for many Kazakhstanis.

The economic structure of Kazakhstan’s cities has also undergone changes over recent decades. In the 1990s, markets and small-scale trade became a means for the population to adapt to the transition to a market economy, stimulating the development of entrepreneurship. Later, Kazakhstan’s cities gradually shifted to a service-oriented economy, in which services, education, healthcare, and small businesses began to play an increasingly important role. Today we are witnessing the emergence of platform-based urbanization. The development of digital technologies, marketplaces, and online services is creating new forms of entrepreneurship and employment. Thus, urbanization in Kazakhstan has passed through three stages, from the bazaar economy of the 1990s to a service economy, and to the platform-based urban economy that is now taking shape.

It should be noted that urbanization does not imply a decline in the importance of rural areas. Kazakhstan possesses significant land resources and favorable conditions for the development of crop production and livestock farming. In terms of agricultural land area, the country ranks among the largest agrarian states in Eurasia. Amid global population growth and rising demand for food, the agricultural economy is becoming one of the strategic sectors of the global economy. Kazakhstan is located near the world’s largest Asian markets, home to billions of people. This creates considerable potential for agricultural exports. Therefore, the development of cities and the modernization of agriculture are complementary processes. Urbanization changes the geography of our lives, but it does not diminish the importance of the rural economy.

If current trends persist, Kazakhstan’s cities will play an increasingly important role in the country’s economic and social development in the coming decades. Further growth of major urban agglomerations, expansion of the service economy, and a stronger role of digital platforms in organizing employment and entrepreneurship can be expected. At the same time, cities will continue to serve as key centers of education, innovation, and human capital formation. This is where young people, professional communities, and new sectors of the economy will concentrate. In this sense, urban development is gradually becoming one of the main factors of the country’s long-term competitiveness.

Thus, urbanization is not a temporary phenomenon. It is a long-term process through which a new economic and social structure of the country is being formed. In this regard, the development of cities is becoming one of the key resources for Kazakhstan’s future.

Сообщение Why does urbanization contribute to a country’s development? появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

In Kazakhstan, higher education for women has long been the norm. After participation in education and the economy comes a more complex phase, the rethinking of values and roles within a generation. Why do young women and men view the distribution of family responsibilities differently, and how does this affect the future of the family and the economy?

Social change is usually measured in numbers such as the share of women in universities, women’s employment rates, and their representation across professions. In terms of gender indicators, Kazakhstan has come a long way, moving through the stage of expanding women’s access to higher education and the labor market. Higher education for women has long ceased to be unusual. Today, women are successfully integrated into both education and the economy. After participation comes a more subtle phase, the alignment of values and roles. This concerns society’s expectations of partnership, the distribution of family responsibility, and the right to make economic decisions. It is here that a more complex phase begins.

In a survey commissioned by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, respondents were asked to evaluate the statement, ‘If jobs are scarce, men should have a greater right to work than women^[1]. When the responses are grouped into two categories, support for male priority and rejection of it, the following results emerge.

Among men aged 18 to 29, support for this idea is higher than among women of the same age, with a difference of approximately 24 points. This gap does not signal ideological conflict or radicalization. It reflects a divergence in the pace of value change. Young women are revising their understanding of partnership and the distribution of roles more rapidly, while the views of young men are shifting more gradually. Gender inequality is therefore no longer primarily expressed through unequal access to education, which is largely secured, but through differences in expectations and normative frameworks within the same generation.

In the social sciences, this dynamic is often described as the second phase of modernization. The first phase centers on women’s integration into education and the economy. The second phase concerns the transformation of family norms and everyday practices. As women gain economic independence, the perceived value of marriage changes, along with decisions about whether to have children and how many, and expectations regarding the quality of relationships. In East Asia and Europe, this stage was associated with later marriage and declining birth rates. When opportunities expand more rapidly than family roles adjust, tensions emerge that influence decisions about marriage and childbearing.

The demographic dynamics of recent years reinforce the sense of an ongoing demographic transition. After increasing in 2021, the crude birth rate declined by 2024[2]. During the same period, the marriage rate fell, the number of registered marriages decreased, and the divorce rate, after peaking in 2019, also began to decline. These trends require careful interpretation. They do not signal the breakdown of the family. Rather, they indicate a decline in the intensity of marriage as a social institution. People marry less often and, consequently, divorce less often. Under conditions of asymmetry in values and expectations within the family, women tend to become more cautious, marriage becomes more selective, and parenthood more deliberate. In this way, values increasingly shape economic and demographic behavior.

Family and gender policy still relies largely on the discourse of traditional values, demographic responsibility, and spiritual revival. These orientations remain important. However, the second phase of change requires institutional adaptation to a new social reality. Childcare services, flexible employment arrangements for young mothers, and fathers’ participation in childcare are developing more slowly than the values and expectations of younger generations are evolving. As a result, a dissonance emerges between formal equality and the actual distribution of family responsibilities. If this gap persists, it may constrain the effective use of human capital and affect long term demographic sustainability. This is not a conflict between men and women. It is a question of institutional responsiveness to social change. Formal equality alone is no longer sufficient. It is essential to create conditions in which equality can be realized in everyday life by supporting responsible fatherhood, taking regional specificities into account, and integrating gender equality into a broader agenda of social solidarity and social development.

Women’s integration into education and the economy has largely been achieved. A more complex stage is now unfolding, the alignment of values and roles. The sustainability of the future will depend on whether institutions are able to keep pace with these changes.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, we express gratitude to women for their contributions to the development of the country, the economy, families, and society. May the space of opportunities continue to expand, and may decisions about career, family, and personal paths be made freely and consciously. Happy International Women’s Day.

[1] The survey, conducted from May 11 to June 22, 2024, was commissioned by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KazISS) and included 8,101 respondents. Participants were adults aged 18 and over from 17 regions of the country, as well as from the cities of national significance – Astana, Almaty, and Shymkent.

[2] https://stat.gov.kz/ru/industries/social-statistics/demography/

Сообщение When Young Women Think Differently. How Values and Roles Change Within a Generation появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

Last week, on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I found myself reflecting on how the issue of women in science is part of a broader historical process. In Kazakhstan, women make up more than half of current university students. However, this majority does not have equal representation in the economy and government. At what point in development does a state begin to understand that it needs not only men but also women equally? Why does this shift take so long to occur?

Modernization rarely begins with the idea of equality. It begins with the need to consolidate power and stabilize the state. The priority is to accelerate economic growth and ensure stability. Historically, countries pursuing rapid development first concentrate resources. They build infrastructure, roads and factories, expand industry, and strengthen administrative capacity. In this phase, men often become the central figures of modernization, soldiers, engineers, industrial workers. Yet as the economy grows more complex, relying on only one part of society becomes insufficient. In academic literature, this shift is often described as state feminism, a process in which women’s inclusion and empowerment are promoted from above as part of a broader state modernization project.

When Modernization Needed Women

To what extent was women’s entry into professional life a deliberate choice? How was it linked to a country’s shift toward a more complex economy? A classic example of state feminism is Turkey under Kemal Atatürk. Expanding women’s rights and access to education was seen as a symbol of a modern, secular state. Women were not only participants in state-led reforms but also visible markers of cultural transformation.

Soviet modernization, which shaped Kazakhstan’s development, followed a similar pattern. Women’s access to education and their large-scale entry into the workforce were part of a state project. This was not emancipation in the strict sense. Rather, it was inclusion directed from above. At the same time, such core sectors of the economy as heavy industry, mining, infrastructure remained largely male-dominated. The breadwinner model became the norm, men were viewed as primary economic actors, while women combined paid work with primary responsibility for family care.

South Korea followed a comparable path. Rapid industrial growth in the 1960s and 1970s relied mainly on male labor. As the country moved toward a knowledge-based economy, broader female participation became necessary, especially in professional and managerial roles.

Scandinavian countries went further. Childcare systems, flexible work arrangements, and policies supporting equal access to employment became part of national competitiveness. In these societies, women’s participation was not only an economic adjustment but also a shift in social norms.

Japan offers a more layered example. Modernization began in the Meiji era, when women gained access to education and industrial work. Yet a strict gender hierarchy remained. The ideology of the “good wife, wise mother” defined women primarily through family responsibility. After World War II, Japan rebuilt its economy and later moved into high-technology sectors. At that stage, broader female participation became economically necessary.

Today, Japanese women are highly educated and active in the labor market. The government promotes greater inclusion. Yet wage gaps persist, women remain underrepresented in senior leadership, and family and care responsibilities still fall largely on them. Many face a double burden, balancing career and family expectations. At the same time, Japan experiences low fertility rates and later marriages[i].

These cases show that women’s inclusion in the workforce is rarely a spontaneous social movement. More often, it is shaped by state policy. As economies become more complex, they require a wider pool of skilled participants. Yet economic change often moves faster than social norms. This gap is especially visible in countries shifting from industrial production to economies where knowledge and skills are the main resources. Kazakhstan is now entering precisely such a stage.

Kazakhstan at a Transition Point

After gaining independence in the 1990s, Kazakhstan had to focus on survival and stabilization. The priorities were preserving industrial capacity, developing the resource sector, and attracting investment. The immediate goal was economic stability. Redefining gender roles or restructuring the labor market was not on the agenda.

Today, the country is at a different stage. Strategic documents increasingly emphasize human capital, diversification, and a shift toward a more advanced development model. Growth now depends on knowledge, digital skills, and initiative. It requires flexibility and the ability to operate in a global environment. Under these conditions, one conclusion is clear: sustainable development is not possible without using the full potential of society.

Women in Kazakhstan are highly educated. They make up more than half of university students. They are strongly represented in education, healthcare, finance, and small business. Yet imbalances remain. Women are still underrepresented in high-paying technical roles, senior management, and government positions. The wage gap persists. In addition, they continue to carry most family and care responsibilities. As a result, their potential is present, but not fully realized.

State Feminism Today

In the twentieth century, women’s participation in paid work was often treated as a social issue. Today, it is closely linked to the country’s future. Investment in girls’ education, support for women entrepreneurs, and policies that help balance work and family are no longer only about equality. They are about long-term development.

In many countries, this shift was driven less by ideology and more by practical considerations. Without broader female participation, growth slows. Scandinavian countries, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore each expanded women’s educational and professional roles as part of their transition toward more knowledge-based systems. For Kazakhstan, this discussion is becoming increasingly relevant.

Modernization in the twenty-first century brings both opportunities and pressures. Digitalization and flexible labor markets make economies more dynamic, but also more competitive and unstable. In this context, expanding women’s participation cannot be a temporary adjustment. It requires attention to job quality, career pathways, and reliable social infrastructure. Seen this way, state feminism is not about a “women’s issue.” It is about how national development is organized.

Human Mirror

Modernization is not only about GDP or investment flows. It is about how a society uses its human capacity. As systems become more complex, it becomes difficult to justify leaving half the population at the margins. Women in Kazakhstan have long demonstrated strong educational and professional performance. The question is no longer whether they can contribute, but whether existing structures allow them to do so fully. Development cannot be reduced to technology or infrastructure alone. At its core, it is about people. In this sense, state feminism offers a lens through which to examine how completely a country mobilizes its human potential.

[i] Ueno Ch. The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and fall. Victoria, Australia: Trans Pacific Press. 2009

Сообщение State Feminism. Why Does Modernization Eventually Turn to Women? появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

The article interprets the draft Constitution as an attempt to provide an institutional response to an increasingly complex social and digital reality, in which the emphasis shifts from improvisation to formalized rules, and the protection of human rights is linked not to declarations but to functioning procedures.

The emergence of the new draft Constitution always evokes strong emotions, which is to be expected. In the public mind, the Constitution is rarely perceived as a purely legal document; rather, it primarily serves as a symbol of justice, the boundaries of state authority, and personal security. However, if we move beyond the initial emotional response, several structural and substantive issues come into focus. Overall, the draft Constitution proposes a renewed constitutional architecture centered on procedures, constitutional oversight, and the protection of the individual rights in the digital age.

The Individual as the Highest Value

The draft Constitution opens with a clear formula: Kazakhstan is a democratic, secular, legal state governed by the rule of law, and committed to social welfare, and the highest values are proclaimed to be the individual, their life, rights, and freedoms. This provision sets the overall direction of the text and serves as the foundation for subsequent provision, ranging from from guarantees of personal security to access to information and the protection of privacy.

The Shift Toward a Rules-Based State

One of the most notable shifts in the draft Constitution is the predominance of procedures over declarative goals. In Articles 3 and 4, the state is not framed through a mission, ideal, or vision of the future. Instead, it is defined through principles of governance, sources of authority, and mechanisms of power delegation. Such language is characteristic of a procedural state, in which stability is ensured not by charismatic decisions or situational interpretation, but by clearly established rules governing institutional functioning.

Procedural Safeguards in Situations of Vulnerability

Special attention in the draft Constitution is given to situations in which individuals are particularly vulnerable within the system. It stipulates that detention and custody are permissible only on the grounds and in the manner prescribed by law, with mandatory judicial oversight and the right to appeal. Individuals must be informed of the reasons for the restriction of their liberty and of their rights, and access to legal counsel must be ensured from the earliest stages. These provisions matter not as political declarations but as concrete rules designed to reduce the risk of arbitrary decisions and enhance the predictability of law enforcement.

Digital Reality as Part of Constitutional Guarantees

The explicit reference to the protection of privacy in the context of digital technologies represents a qualitatively new constitutional element. The draft enshrines the inviolability of correspondence, communications, messages, personal data, and banking secrecy. It recognizes that private life today exists not only in physical space but also in the digital sphere. For the first time at the constitutional level, the protection of privacy and personal data is directly linked to the use of digital technologies (Article 21), which is a crucial step toward aligning constitutional norms with the realities of everyday life in Kazakhstan.

Access to Information as an Element of Justice

One of the most practical provisions of the draft concerns the obligation of state bodies and officials to ensure access to documents, decisions, and sources of information that affect individuals’ rights and interests. In fact, it establishes a simple principle, put simply, if a decision concerns you, you have the right to know the grounds on which it is based. This enhances transparency and fosters more trusting relations between citizens and the state.

Freedom of Speech and the Balance of Responsibility

The draft reaffirms freedom of expression and the prohibition of censorship, while simultaneously establishing limitations aimed at protecting honor and dignity, health, morality, and public order. This reflects a widely used approach in legal systems whereby freedom of speech may be restricted only on the basis of law, for legitimate aims, and in accordance with the principles of necessity and proportionality. In practice, this balance places courts at the center of determining where freedom ends and responsibility begins.

The Constitution Sets the Rules of the Game, Not Exhaustive Solutions

At the same time, it is important to understand that the draft Constitution does not resolve all societal concerns – and this is natural for a document of such scope. The Constitution is not intended to replace political debate or public discourse. By defining the “rules of the game,” the Basic Law does not comprehensively regulate all social relations nor substitute for ongoing lawmaking. Its purpose is to establish fundamental principles and the architecture of power, codify decision-making procedures, set the limits of permissible state intervention, and secure basic guarantees of human rights and freedoms. Concrete solutions emerge later, through legislation, subordinate regulation, and, ultimately, judicial practice.

Institutional Predictability and Constitutional Oversight

The draft Constitution explicitly enshrines core parameters of statehood, including sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the form of government. In effect, this signals that some elements of statehood are meant to remain stable even as political contexts change. Particular emphasis is placed on the predictability of the presidential mandate: the term of office is set at seven years and limited to a single term, and this provision is expressly designated as unchangeable.

Another significant development is the strengthening of the Constitutional Court. For the first time, Kazakhstani citizens are granted a direct constitutional instrument of protection – the ability to challenge normative acts that directly affect their rights and freedoms. This marks an important shift: conflicts with the state are now intended to be resolved within the legal system rather than through street protest or political crisis. In this sense, constitutional oversight becomes a central mechanism for managing disagreement within institutional boundaries.

The Overall Meaning of the Draft

Overall, the draft of the new Constitution can be read as an effort to transition toward a rules-based state rather than one reliant on improvisation, featuring clearer procedures, strengthened constitutional oversight, recognition of digital realities, and an emphasis on institutional predictability. This is precisely why public discussion of the draft is so essential. The constitutional text defines the framework, while its substantive impact will depend on the quality of legislation and the practice of its implementation.

Сообщение Draft of the New Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan. What is changing in the state’s architecture and what does it mean for the citizens? появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.

This article is the final installment in a series exploring how artificial intelligence is gradually becoming part of everyday life for Kazakhstanis. In the first piece, we showed that today about half of Kazakhstan’s population already encounters AI in their daily practices, often without even realizing it. The second article focused on attitudes toward artificial intelligence. The data revealed different groups of people with varying expectations, hopes, and levels of trust in technology. This text turns to what is discussed less often, yet concerns people the most – fears and anxieties. It shows that these concerns are not about fantastic scenarios, but about real experiences: safety, employment, and the boundaries of human autonomy. Ultimately, the series helps to demonstrate how artificial intelligence has become a social reality for Kazakhstanis, and how, together with it, digital trust is being formed – a trust that society still has to work on.

Let me begin with a simple observation. When people are asked what they fear in connection with artificial intelligence, they hardly talk about artificial intelligence itself. They talk about phone calls, about messages in messengers, about emails from banks. Therefore, the primary concern is not a machine uprising, but cyber fraud. It is feared by 55.3% of respondents[1]. This is an important point, because it immediately sets the emphasis, where uncertainty appears, the human mind automatically looks for a threat.

And if we examine these responses more closely, it becomes clear that this is not about fear of artificial intelligence at all. What is at stake is human psychological adaptation to a new reality. Fears associated with artificial intelligence are not fears of technology itself. They reflect a concern about being left vulnerable in an environment where change is occurring faster than we can adapt to it. It is no coincidence that anxiety arises more often where the digital environment has already become a familiar part of everyday life, it is precisely there that the demand for trust and protection emerges earlier. As long as AI develops faster than the sense of security, anxiety will remain an inevitable companion of progress. And the main question today is not how intelligent artificial intelligence is, but how protected human beings are in this new reality.

In fact, this is about the formation of a new social norm: digital trust. It is already emerging in everyday life, but so far it is developing faster in technology than in rules and institutions. It is precisely this gap that has become a source of anxiety for people today.

More than a quarter of respondents (27.5%) expressed concern about breaches of privacy and the leakage of personal data. These two concerns are closely linked, it is not only about financial losses, but also about the sense of losing control over one’s own information and personal boundaries. In this context, artificial intelligence appears as part of a digital environment in which people do not always understand who is managing their data or how it is being used.

Another quarter of respondents (27.4%) fear human dependence on artificial intelligence, for example, that children will stop doing their homework themselves. When people talk about dependence on AI, the most vivid example they often give is children and school assignments. Here, the anxiety is not about the technology itself, but about the replacement of effort with ready-made answers. All of us remember that doing homework had always been less about getting the “right” answer and more about the process, the process of thinking, trying, making mistakes, and taking responsibility. Parents’ fear is that if this process disappears, children may stop thinking independently and delegate tasks to a machine. This concern is not about AI itself, but about ensuring that our children do not lose the ability to learn and make independent decisions.

Just under a quarter of respondents expressed concern about job loss due to automation (22.4% of respondents). This result shows that, for now, artificial intelligence is not perceived as an inevitable threat to employment. People are not afraid of being left without work or a future; they are afraid of not being able to adapt in time. Behind this concern lies not so much a rejection of technology as uncertainty, the question of whether people will have the time, resources, and support to find their place in the new economy. After all, today skills become obsolete faster than a sense of stability can develop.

If we consider these data as a signal, it becomes clear that anxiety around artificial intelligence should not be seen as a sign of societal weakness, but as a sign of engagement. People are not rejecting technology; they are trying to understand how to integrate it into their familiar worldview, where boundaries, responsibility, and a sense of support exist. This is why the discussion about artificial intelligence inevitably goes beyond technology and comes down to the question of trust. Digital trust does not emerge on its own; it cannot be activated with a button or established through a single formal rule. It develops gradually, through experience, mistakes, and the formation of new habits. The calmer and more consciously we approach these fears today, the higher the chance that artificial intelligence will become a tool that expands human capabilities without depriving individuals of control over their own lives.

[1] All observations are based on data from a sociological survey commissioned by the KazISS and conducted from October 3 to November 5, 2025. The sample size comprised 8,000 respondents. The survey included respondents aged 18 and over from 17 regions of the country, as well as from the cities of national significance – Astana, Almaty, and Shymkent.  

Сообщение Digital Trust in an AI-Driven World появились сначала на KAZAKHSTAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.