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ABSTRACT
Since the end of communist rule in 1991, Albania has seen, proportionately, one of the largest outflows of its people of any country in the world – an emigrant stock in 2013 equivalent to 44% of its resident population. This article addresses two issues related to the future trend of Albanian migration. First, a migration module of 23 questions designed by the authors and attached to the 2018 round of the European Values Survey asked about future migration intentions. These were found to be high and increasing: 52% of 18 to 40-year-olds expressed their intention to migrate compared to 44% in a comparable survey in 2006/7. The top two desired destination countries have switched from Italy and Greece in the past to Germany and the USA in the latest survey, which also shows potential migration higher amongst the more-skilled and educated population compared to past trends. A subsample of returned migrants captured by the survey shows even higher intentions to migrate – 71%. Second, Albania’s anticipated migration transition, from a country of emigration to one of net immigration, is deferred if migration intentions correlate with migration outcomes, with obvious reflections on the country’s overall development trajectory.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Within Europe, this ratio is only succeeded (and marginally so) by the neighbouring but much smaller (population 622,000) Montenegro (45.4%) and by Bosnia and Herzegovina (population 3.8 m, 44.5%). These cases are not fully comparable with Albania because most of their ‘emigration’ is within the former Yugoslavia, especially to Croatia and Serbia, and took place before the break-up of Yugoslavia. In the case of Bosnia, external flows are also swollen by refugees, to countries like Germany and Sweden; so, again, not strictly comparable to the case of Albania.
2. Second only to Malta (36.5%), whose highly educated population suffers from the ‘small-country’ syndrome, limiting graduate employment opportunities.
3. The EVS is conducted decennially in all European countries. It is a large-scale cross-national longitudinal survey focusing on human values relating to life, family, work, religion, politics and society.
4. The full migration module is available on request from the authors.
5. The literal translation in Albanian is ‘Do you think to migrate…?’.
6. Respondents were shown a card with the six items listed in and were asked: ‘Please look at this card and tell me, for each item listed, how much confidence you have in it – a great deal, quite a lot, not very much, or none at all’.
7. Respondents who affirmed their intention to migrate were asked when they thought this would be: (a) within one year, (b) in the next three years, (c) in the next 10 years, (d) longer than 10 years, (e) do not know.
8. According to INSTAT projections, by 2018 the 18–40 age group will have shrunk to 939,000 persons, in which case, according to our predictions, annual emigration of this cohort will be 33,800.
9. These figures must be viewed with caution as in some cases they are based on small respondent numbers.
10. Self-assessed income data are often regarded as inherently problematic. For instance, respondents may want to give the impression that they are better off than they actually are; or, on the other hand, incomes may be under-estimated for fear of tax penalties. In our survey, respondents were asked: ‘Here is a list of incomes and we would like to know in which group your household is, counting all wages, salaries, pensions and other income that comes in, after taxes and other deductions have been made. Just give the letter of the group your household falls into’. Conversion from Albanian currency was on the ratio of 1 euro = 130 lek.
11. Similar results were found by survey research in Afghanistan where the most poor and vulnerable households have a lower intention to migrate than others who are better-off (Loschmann & Siegel, Citation2014).
12. For more detail on this ’Southern European model of migration transition’ see King, Fielding, and Black (Citation1997), and Pratsinakis et al. (Citation2017) for a more detailed examination of the Greek case. The historical trajectory from mass emigration to mass immigration witnessed by Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal saw a new twist after the recent economic crisis when renewed emigration, especially of highly educated young people, took place.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Russell King
Russell King is Professor of Geography in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, UK, and Visiting Professor of Migration Studies at Malmö University, Sweden.
Ilir Gëdeshi
Ilir Gëdeshi is an economist and Director of the Center for Economic and Social Studies (CES) in Tirana, Albania.