Religion and Contraceptive Use in Kazakhstan: A Study of Mediating Mechanisms

A resurgence of religiosity has been observed in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. However, since the late 1990s, there has been a lack of research on the impact of religion on contraceptive use and the differences in such use across religious groups in the country and Central Asia. The two major religious groups, Islam and Christianity, have closely aligned with the country's two main ethnicities, Kazakhs and Russians, which have shown significant variations in fertility development and stages of demographic transition. This study utilizes Kazakhstan's Generations and Gender Survey 2020 to examine the variations in contraceptive use among different religious affiliations and explore the potential factors behind these differences. Causal mediation analysis is employed separately for women and men. The findings reveal that Muslims exhibit lower contraceptive use compared to Christians. While higher demand for children, increased religiosity, and socioeconomic factors partially explain these differences, existing theories fail to fully account for the diverse patterns of family planning observed within the same national context.