Throughout Europe, especially in developing countries, people are moving in search of a better life.
Globalization, the opening of markets, the easing of movement and work permit criteria by aging developed countries are opportunities that, naturally, many will try to take advantage of, especially young people who today have higher expectations from life.
But no one is leaving at the rate that Albanians are leaving. The latest Eurostat data, processed by "Monitor", show that Albania's population has been reduced by 18.2% at the end of 2024, compared to 2011, a period that includes the development of two censuses.
During this period, the country's population has decreased by over 500. The country officially has 2.36 million inhabitants today, a figure also reported to Eurostat.
This percentage decline (measured by the relative size of the nation) is the highest in Europe, according to Eurostat. The second country to lose the most residents, after Albania, is Bulgaria, whose population has decreased by 12.3% over the same period.
North Macedonia ranks third, losing 11.4%, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina (-11.2%), Croatia (-9.7%), Latvia (-9.4%) and Serbia (-9%). The only country in the region that has managed to maintain almost unchanged population levels is Montenegro, which has seen an increase of 0.6% since 2011. (Figures for Kosovo are missing).
Western European countries, although older, have managed to increase their populations as a result of aggressive immigration policies as a solution to address demographic problems resulting from population aging and declining birth rates.
The eurozone has increased its population by 3.2% since 2011. In Italy, the oldest country in Europe, along with Spain, the population has changed by -1.8% and +4.5% respectively. Germany, which has relaxed work permit criteria in recent years, has increased its population by 4% in more than a decade.
In Albania, the strong population contraction is related to two factors. First, the slowdown in natural increase, which turned negative during the pandemic and is now at minimal levels, with only 1.2 thousand people plus in 2024, from over 60 thousand people in the early 90s.
The second and most important factor is emigration, which saw a new wave after 2016, mainly from the young population. In 2024, according to Eurostat, net emigration was 28.8 thousand people.
The second highest in Europe, after Turkey, which had a net emigration of -156 thousand people, but which is a country with a population of 86 million! Since the 90s, in each decade, when Census data is available, an average of 500 thousand people have left the country.
Both of these factors have contributed to the ageing of the population. According to other Eurostat data, Albania’s median age reached 44.3 years in 2024, approaching the EU average of 44.7 years last year. This means that in Albania, half of the population is under 44.3 years old and half is over this age. In 2010, half of the Albanian population was under 31.9 years old.
The decline in the population and its aging have caused a bottleneck in the labor market, forcing businesses to curb expansion, it has curbed productivity, while wages have increased without being accompanied by productivity, it has curbed consumption and in the long term is expected to affect the pension scheme and sustainable growth in the country, while the government does not yet seem to accept as a major problem, the high rates at which the country's population is being reduced. / Monitor
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