Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of trends in the socio-economic situation of the urban and rural population of Kazakhstan in the period from the mid-1980s of the twentieth century to the present time. The main approaches adopted in the practice of foreign studies of the socio-economic situation of urban and rural populations and differentiation of living standards are considered. The paper examines the main indicators that determine the incomes and living standards of the population - wages, income, and expenditures of households, and others. These indicators are analysed in two dimensions - dynamics, reflecting the relevant trends, and the gap between the indicators for urban and rural populations, which illustrates the inequality of incomes and living standards between urban and rural areas. The conducted analysis allowed us to draw a number of conclusions regarding the trends in the socio-economic situation of the urban and rural population. In particular, significant changes in the socio-economic situation of the rural and urban population between 1986 and 2024, with a more significant deterioration in rural areas during the reforms and the radical change in economic formations that took place at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s; two oppositely directed trends in the differentiation of living standards between urban and rural populations have been identified - a sharp increase from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and a gradual narrowing of the gap from the early 2000s to the present day; it has been noted that the gap between the urban and rural populations has been increasing since the early 2000s.