Uzbekistani Bodybuilders

The demographics of Uzbekistan are the demographic features of the population of Uzbekistan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The nationality of any person from Uzbekistan is Uzbekistani, while the ethnic Uzbek majority call themselves Uzbeks. Much of the data is estimated because the last census was carried out in Soviet times in 1989.

Demographic trends

Uzbekistan is Central Asia's most populous country. Its 35 million people ( estimate) comprise nearly half the region's total population.

The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 25.1% of its people are younger than 14. According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (84.4%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups, as of 1996 estimates, include Russians (5.5% of the population), Tajiks (5%), Kazakhs (3%), Karakalpaks (2.5%), and Tatars (1.5%).Uzbekistan i
CIA World Factbook
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Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region from the Soviet Far East in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 94% Muslim (mostly Sunni), 3% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths (which include small communities of Korean Christians, other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Baha'is, and more). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989World Jewish Population 2001
, ''American Jewish Yearbook'', vol. 101 (2001), p. 561. (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the collapse of the USSR, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States or Israel. More than 5,000 Jews remain in Uzbekistan.World Jewish Population 2007
, ''American Jewish Yearbook'', vol. 107 (2007), p. 592.

Much of Uzbekistan's population was engaged in cotton farming in large-scale collective farms when the country was part of the Soviet Union. The population continues to be heavily rural and dependent on farming for its livelihood, although the farm structure in Uzbekistan has largely shifted from collective to individual since 1990.

Vital statistics

UN estimates

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs website > World Population Prospects: The 2019 revision.

Sources:

Current vital statistics

Fertility and births

Total fertility rate (TFR) and crude birth rate (CBR):

Total fertility rate (TFR)

According to the CIA World Factbook, the total fertility rate (TFR) estimated as of 2011 is 1.89 children born/woman.

In 2002, the estimated TFR was 2.92; Uzbeks 2.99, Russians 1.35, Karakalpak 2.69, Tajik 3.19, Kazakh 2.95, Tatar 2.05, others 2.53; Tashkent City 1.96, Karakalpakstan 2.90, Fergana 2.73; Eastern region 2.71, East Central 2.96, Central 3.43, Western 3.05.

The high fertility rate during the Soviet Union and during its period of disintegration is partly due to the historical cultural preferences for large families, economic reliance upon agriculture, and the greater relative worth of Soviet child benefits in Uzbekistan. Abortion was the preferred method of birth control. Legalized in 1955, the number of abortions increased by 231% from 1956-1973. By 1991, the abortion ratio was 39 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year.

However, in the past few decades, fertility control methods have shifted considerably from abortion to modern contraceptive methods, especially IUDs. By the mid-1980s IUDS became the main method of contraception through government and organizational policies that aimed to introduce women to modern contraceptives. According to a UHES report from 2002, 73% of married Uzbek woman had used the IUD, 14% male condom, and 13% the pill.

The government supported the use of modern contraceptives to control fertility rates because of national economic difficulties that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Thus the government has been influential in determining the popularity of the IUD. Despite family planning programs that educate women on different methods of contraception, the IUD has remained women’s first choice of contraception. Word of mouth and social relations also account for the strong preference for the IUD. Nevertheless, factors such as class and level of education have been shown to give women more freedom in their choice of contraception methods.

Regional differences

The regions of Surxondaryo and Qashqadaryo have the highest birth rate and the lowest death rates in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, the city of Tashkent has the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate of the country.

Age structure

Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.I.2020):

Life expectancy

Source: ''UN World Population Prospects 2017''

Ethnic groups

Ethnic composition according to the 1989 population census (latest available):

Uzbek 71%, Russian 6%, Tajik 5% (believed to be much higher Richard Foltz, "The Tajiks of Uzbekistan", ''Central Asian Survey'', 15(2), 213-216 (1996).), Kazakh 4%, Tatar 3%, Karakalpak 2%, other 7%.

Estimates of ethnic composition in 1996 from ''CIA World Factbook'':

Uzbek 80%, Russian 5.5%, Tajik 5%, Kazakh 3%, Karakalpak 2.5%, Tatar 1.5%, other 2.5% (1996 est.)

The table shows the ethnic composition of Uzbekistan's population (in percent) according to four population censuses between 1926 and 1989 (no population census was carried out in 1999, and the next census is now being planned for 2010). The increase in the percentage of Tajik from 3.9% of the population in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989 may be attributed, at least in part, to the change in census instructions: in the 1989 census for the first the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely self-declared on the basis of the respondent's ethnic self-identification.

Languages

According to the CIA factbook, the current language distribution is: Uzbek 74.3%, Russian 14.2%, Tajik 4.4% and Other 7.1%. The Latin script replaced Cyrillic in the mid-1990s.
Following independence, Uzbek was made the official state language. President Islam Karimov, the radical nationalist group Birlik (Unity), and the Uzbek Popular Front promoted this change. These parties believed that Uzbek would stimulate nationalism and the change itself was part of the process of de-Russification, which was meant to deprive Russian language and culture of any recognition. Birlik held campaigns in the late 1980s to achieve this goal, with one event in 1989 culminating in 12,000 people in Tashkent calling for official recognition of Uzbek as the state language.Nancy Lubin. “Uzbekistan: The Challenges Ahead,” Middle East Journal vol. 43, Number 4, Autumn 1989, 619-634. In 1995, the government adopted the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on State Language, which mandates that Uzbek be used in all public spheres and official jobs. Scholars studying migration and ethnic minorities have since criticized the law as a source of discrimination toward minorities who do not speak Uzbek. Nevertheless, Russian remains the de facto language when it comes to science, inter-ethnic communication, business, and advertising.
Multiple sources suggest that the Persian-speaking Tajik population of Uzbekistan may be as large as 10%-15% of the total population. The Tajik language is the dominant language spoken in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The delineation of territory in 1924 and the process of “Uzbekisation” caused many Tajiks to identify as Uzbek. Thus there are many Tajiks who speak Tajik but are officially documented as Uzbek.

Religion

Muslims constitute 94% of the population according to a 2013 US State Department release. Approximately 3% of the population are Russian Orthodox Christians.

There were 94,900