Depopulation crisis: 1.7 millions of Albanians have left the country

Tirana Times
By Tirana Times December 21, 2020 19:57

Depopulation crisis: 1.7 millions of Albanians have left the country


According to the new report on the Albanian Diaspora by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), 47 thousand Albanians left the country in 2019, pushing the total tally of the Albanians living abroad at 1,684,135, or 37% of the entire population. In order to derivate the total number of Albanians living abroad as well as their age and gender structure, INSTAT compared the civil registry with the actual resident population. As a result, the institution concludes that 884,719 males and 799,416 females are living outside the country. What is of particular concern for the experts is the relatively young population that have emigrated, where 76% of the individuals are from 15 to 64 years old and 19% are part of the age group between 0-14 years old. The report acknowledges that there is not a systematical registration of the citizens which leaves the country, making it difficult to have a precise measurement of the numbers.

While INSTAT takes into consideration also the censuses of other countries, the phenomenon of illegally emigrating to the EU, and especially to the United Kingdom or the United States, it is well-known and widely reported in the media, therefore even that practice would have its limits. Based on foreign censuses, it is estimated that around 75% of all the Albanian citizens living abroad reside in Italy and Greece, followed by the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada and Belgium. According to a 2019 United Nations report, from the mid-90s to 2010 over 40% of all the Albanian individuals living abroad were located in Greece. After 2010, Italy is considered the country with the highest percentage of Albanian emigrants, with almost 40% of all the Albanian citizens living abroad.

Nevertheless, INSTAT has adopted various ways to give a more complete picture of the Albanian diaspora numbers. In November, the institute published a large survey on family emigration, conducted in around 20 thousand families across the country. The survey found that over 360,000 people have emigrated during the last decade, which constitutes around 13% of the population. A growing trend during this period was the emigration of families, where only in Tirana 10.3 of all the registered families emigrated from 2011 to 2019. Overall, 6,6% of all the Albanian families (around 49 thousand) have left the country during the second decade of the 21st century, while from 2001-2011 the number of families who left the country was 4,4%. Some of the places with the highest population loss include Kukës, Tropoja, Durrës, Elbasan, Fier. Financial reasons and the pursuit of better standards of living are the main reasons that push Albanians to leave the country.   

During the last decade, the high number of asylum seekers in EU was one of the most debated topics in Albania. From 2010 to 2019, around 193,000 Albanians requested asylum in EU. But this issue is far from being over. According to the European Asylum Support Office, from January to September 2020, 5000 thousand asylum applications were made by Albanians citizens towards the EU countries. In September, Albania was the second country in the world for asylum seekers in relation to its population, with 23 applications per 100 thousand people. Only Syria is worst, with 37 applicants per 100 thousand people.

Tirana Times
By Tirana Times December 21, 2020 19:57