Uzbekistan is gearing up to conduct the country’s first census since the Soviet era, aiming to gain precise demographic information to help guide the country’s economic transformation.

The last census in 1989, conducted during the waning days of the Soviet Union, pegged the then-Uzbek SSR’s population at 19.97 million. According to Bakhtiyor Islamov, a former Uzbek deputy foreign minister and currently a leading economic development expert in Tashkent, the country’s population is estimated at 38 million and growing by roughly a million per year.

During a presentation on Uzbek reforms at ColumbiaUniversity’s Harriman Institute, Islamov said the UN Development Programme and other international agencies are assisting Uzbek officials in preparing the census. The most difficult challenge involved in the process is developing methods to gain an accurate picture of Uzbek labor migrants and others abroad, he added.

Hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks travel abroad each year in search of work. A large majority head to Russia, but increasing numbers are seeking jobs elsewhere, including the Gulf. Uzbek diaspora populations are growing in the United States, Islamov added, estimating that 30,000 Uzbeks now live in an around Philadelphia and upwards of 60,000 are in New York City.

About 40 percent of the population is under the age of 35, Islamov said, putting pressure on the government to create enough jobs each year to match population growth.

Labor migration is a major reason why a census hasn’t been conducted since Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, Islamov indicated. For the country’s first post-Soviet leader, Islam Karimov, who wielded unquestioned power in Tashkent from 1991 until his death in 2016, the topic was taboo.

“Karimov didn’t want to hear about labor migration,” Islamov said.

Karimov’s successor Shavkat Mirziyoyev initially sought to conduct a census in 2022, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed those plans. Census results aim to be published in 2027.