Forecasting International Migration in Kazakhstan till 2050.

Fariza Tolesh , Charles University in Prague

Historically, migration had a profound effect on the size, structure and ethnic composition of the population in Kazakhstan. The current demographic situation in the country is a direct result of the migration processes which took place throughout the 20th century. From the time of the establishment of the Soviet system on the territory of Kazakhstan, there have been several massive waves of multinational forced migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Kazakhstan experienced massive out-migration of non-Kazakh ethnicities. During the short economic boom in the mid-2000s, the net migration became positive for several years. However, the recent migration data illustrate that emigration is gaining in volume again. The present paper aims to forecast Kazakhstani international migration flows until 2050 by separating emigration from immigration. I will try to find predictive variables for each migration flow and separately create assumptions on future changes of emigration and immigration. The availability of detailed data on international migration is rather problematic in Kazakhstan. The age and sex structure of migrants are only published in very abridged format. The deterministic time series models will be used for projecting emigration, immigration and net migration. Although, existing migration theories are difficult to use directly to forecast international migration because none of the theories is comprehensive enough (Kupiszewski (2002, pp. 122–124), I will base my assumptions within the framework of geographical and social theories.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy