Human capital and creative economy under crisis migration: a conceptual model and empirical evidence from Kazakhstan

The impact of geopolitically driven crisis migration on human capital accumulation and creative economy development in a receiving country remains theoretically underexplored. Following the large-scale influx of technology professionals from Russia to Kazakhstan in 2022, a developing economy became an unintended beneficiary of highly skilled labour. The purpose of the research is to develop an integrative conceptual model tracing the causal pathway from geopolitical push factors through crisis-driven technological migration and human capital accumulation to the growth of creative economy sectors, and to substantiate the model with descriptive statistical evidence. The empirical base comprises annual official data for 2014–2025 on IT services exports, the volume of computer programming and related services, permits issued to Russian citizens, technology park registrations and creative industry entities. Descriptive statistics, growth rates, compound annual growth rates and structural shares are used. IT services exports increased from USD 60.07 million in 2021 to USD 1,142 million in 2025, a compound annual growth rate of 108.8%. The annual growth of domestic IT services output accelerated from 26.6% in 2014–2021 to 43.9% in 2021–2024, and physical volume indices confirm that the growth was real. At the same time the number of temporary residence permits issued to Russian citizens fell by 49.4% over 2022–2025 while sectoral output continued to grow, a pattern consistent with mediation through institutional absorptive capacity. Almaty and Astana account for about 90% of sectoral output. The study extends the brain gain literature to creative economy outcomes and informs retention and regional absorption policy.

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