Their position in society has been and is influenced by a variety of factors, including local traditions and customs, decades of Soviet regime, rapid social and economic changes and instability after independence, and new emerging Western values.

Following its independence, Kazakhstan's economy, being in a period of transition, experienced, particularly in the 1990s, a strong decline and destabilization: by 1995 real GDP dropped to 61,4% of its 1990 level, resulting also in a brain drain.

It allowed addressing the issues of population rise and women's rights in accordance with the long run political model "Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy.

[7] Forced marriage and bride kidnapping are problems with which women and girls are confronted in Kazakhstan, although their exact prevalence is not known.

[21] Kazakhstan was ranked 30th out of 144 countries in gender equality in a 2016 report conducted by nonprofit organization Save the Children.

At the end of 2020, Kazakhstan introduced a 30 percent quota to increase the representation of women and youth among candidates for Parliament and Maslikhat deputies at all levels.

[31][32] In 1999 a dedicated domestic violence unit was established in Kazakhstan, but due to limited training and resources, this program did not meet expectations and local demand.

Recently, Florida State University has been working with the Ministry of Interior of Kazakhstan and the Almaty City Police Department to provide high quality training on domestic violence.

[34] The Ministry of Defence has been working to promote women in the military through educational programs and career advancement opportunities.

Under the programme, EBRD allocates multi-million loans to women-led SME's and assists them with accessing finance and business advice.

[39] The EBRD signed the first credit line under the programme in September 2016, providing 3.72 billion tenge (approximately US$20 million) to Bank CenterCredit for on-lending to women-led SMEs.

[40] As of 2019, the EBRD with partner financial institutions provided 21,281 sub-loans worth 28.9 billion tenge (US$76 million) to women-led enterprises in Kazakhstan.

WED is a global women's entrepreneurship support initiative launched in 2014 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

One-third of lending provided by the Bank was directed to women and 750 projects worth 51.9 billion tenge (US$155 million) were financed.