The projection, reported on 26 June, fits a long trend. Tajikistan’s population has doubled since 1991 to about 10.5 million and is on course toward 14.5 million by 2050, with the 15-to-64 group set to make up close to 60% of the total. Officials call it a demographic window of opportunity. It is also a demand for work on a scale the domestic economy has not met.
This is the supply side of the remittance story this desk led with on 25 June. Tajikistan already runs on money earned abroad, remittances near half of GDP, most of it wired home from Russia. A workforce growing by 2 million is 2 million more people who will need a job at home or a labour market abroad. On current form, most of the slack is taken up by migration.
A workforce growing by two million is two million more people who need a job at home or a labour market abroad.
The arithmetic is tightening at both ends. Arable land per person keeps shrinking, toward 0.05 hectares by 2027 on one official estimate, so farming cannot absorb the young. Industry and construction are not growing fast enough to do it either. And the main external valve, Russia, is raising migrant fees from 1 July and leaning on its labour rules, which narrows the traditional escape route just as the cohort that needs it swells.
So the window cuts both ways. A young, growing workforce can power growth if it is employed, schooled and healthy, or it can deepen dependence on remittances and the politics of whichever country hosts the workers. Tajikistan can post strong headline growth and still be running to stand still, because each year brings more working-age citizens than its own economy can hire. The figure to watch sits beside the population total: the jobs created at home.