TIRANA, Feb. 12 – Trends of mass migration and low birth rates were brought to attention once again this week with the publication of an INSTAT graph showing that during 2017, Albania’s population continued to shrink, but not as fast as some other sources have shown, staying at 2.8 million.
The number of births during 2017 reached 30,869 — the lowest number registered since 1930, when the country did its first census.
The number of births has been gradually decreasing in the last years. In 2015, the number of births was 33,221 as opposed to the natural incline of the 80s, when annual birth count reached 70,000-80,000 people.
Local media report these are the lowest birth rate numbers the country has seen since before WWII, when Albania’s population was a mere 1 million.
Low birth rates are an indicator of future demographic issues, as Albanians born between 2010-2020 will have to provide for pensioners, who number will be much higher than the working population.
However, the biggest blow to the population decline comes from the high migration rates.
According to the INSTAT study, 40,000 Albanian left the country during 2017, while only 25,000 returned — a population movement that mounts to a negative difference of 15,000 people. Some experts see INSTAT’s data as conservative, and believe that the population shrank faster in 2017, based on other public data.
Nine out of 12 districts experienced a decline in population, with Dibra, Gjirokastà«r and Berat leading the dropping numbers. Tirana’s population, on the other hand, went up with about 25.1 per thousand people, followed by Durrà«s and Vlora.
INSTAT fairly warns these numbers are to be read as approximations, considering the population was counted based on the last 2011 census and taking into consideration births, deaths and estimated migration flows based on the registered citizens leaving and entering.
In this context, especially migration flows might in reality be lower or higher than projected in recent studies.
Even with these reservations in mind, Albania still makes top three asylum-seeking countries of safe origin in Europe.
In addition, a local media report published this week showed the country is also first in the number of minors seeking asylum in Europe, with thousands of children aged between seven and 17 leaving Albanian unaccompanied with the hope of a better future.
The phenomenon mostly touches rural areas in North and Northeast Albania, but also the suburbs of bigger districts such as Fier, Elbasan or Korà§a.
According to the reports, under-aged asylum seekers’ main destinations are Italy, France and the UK — EUROSTAT data estimates these three countries have hosted around 3,000 minors from Albania together.
Albanian authorities and experts say the rationale behind this trend is to be found in the minors’ parents, and not in extreme poverty, as only few of the families seeking social care were deemed extremely poor.
“It results that families were living in normal homes, with normal living conditions, and when we ask them why they send their children abroad, at first they just shrug and then say they want something better for the kids, to get them papers. It sounds bad, but this was the families’ idea,” Valbona Tula, head of the National Social Service in Shkodra district told local media.
Deputy Minister of Interior Rovena Voda also said that for 70 percent of minors interviewed, the prospect of a better education is the main reason given.
As a result of the ministry’s efforts to decrease the number of minors leaving the country, 871 minors were sent back through tighter border checks.
And despite these secondary migration causes for minors, experts and officials alike agree on the main migration causes – economic stagnation, chronic unemployment, lack of educational perspective and a low trust towards the government.
Voda thus concluded that migration doesn’t constitute just a security issue, but also a social, economic and civic one. She said that in order to handle migration numbers, social institutions should be as responsible and responsive as law-abiding authorities.
