Overtime hurts birth rates: right to rest may be strengthened in the Constitution

Tengrinews.kz – Massive overtime directly affects birth rates and the demographic situation in the country. This was stated today at a meeting of the Commission on Constitutional Reform by public and state figure Abelgazi Kusainov.

According to Kusainov, flexible schedules and overtime hours deprive Kazakh families of the most important thing — time together — which undermines the institution of the family.

“When a person comes home late and exhausted, works on a floating and irregular schedule, and doesn’t know whether they will have a day off, naturally shared rituals, dinners, weekends, and family conversations disappear. Partners begin to live parallel lives, which leads to emotional distance and alienation,” Kusainov noted.

He stressed that without a regulated schedule it is impossible to plan childcare and the distribution of household responsibilities.

“One partner is forced to take on the entire burden of domestic work, sacrificing their career or health. This almost inevitably leads to a sense of injustice, and to professional and emotional burnout within the family. Overtime directly reduces birth rates and, for objective reasons, affects the demographic situation in the country,” he said.

Kusainov added that, at the societal level, widespread overtime leads to loneliness even within marriage and to the breakdown of intergenerational ties.

“Without normatively protected time, there can be no stable society. The right to regulated work and rest is not about comfort, but about the survival of the institution of the family and of the state. That is why I draw your attention to the thoroughly developed and time-appropriate new wording of Article 24, paragraph 4, which guarantees the right to rest,” the public figure concluded.