Country Resource - Albania
- Population............................................................................3,107,100 (2024 est.)
- Population growth rate ...............................................................0.16% (2024 est.)
- Birth rate....................................................12.3 births/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Death rate.................................................7.4 deaths/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Net migration rate.............................-3.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Ethnic groups*............................Albanian 82.6%, Greek 0.9%, other 1% (including Vlach, Romani, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Egyptian), unspecified 15.5% (2011 est.)
* Data represent population by ethnic and cultural affiliation
CIA World Factbook
From ongoing emigration flows and a surge in asylum seekers, to more than 150,000 returnees, this country profile examines contemporary and historical migration trends in Albania. Driven by extreme poverty and unemployment, more than one-third of Albania's population has emigrated in the last 25 years. The government now seeks to capitalize on diaspora resources by linking migration and development policies.
Recent Activity
Previously niche strategies of recruiting partner countries to help manage irregular migration have become mainstream. Governments in multiple migrant-receiving countries have engaged other countries to screen, detain, remove, or otherwise transfer migrants elsewhere—in effect pushing the border outwards. While some externalization approaches have been criticized, the range of models is more nuanced than is commonly understood.
Albania's diaspora has been an asset for the government's ambitions to join the European Union, grow its economy, and increase its international standing. As the government has sought to build closer ties with Albanians living abroad and others with ancestral ties to the homeland, it has seen the diaspora as a tool for public diplomacy, the advancement of cultural traditions, and more.
One-tenth of all immigrants in the United States come from Europe, a vast decline from the mid-20th century, as migration within Europe has grown and more U.S. immigrants arrive from other destinations. This article provides an overview of contemporary European immigration to the United States, as a region and by top European countries of origin.
Southeastern Europe is experiencing one of the sharpest depopulations in the world, with countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia on pace to see their populations shrink by at least 15 percent in coming decades. To counter this trend, governments in the region, NGOs, and the private sector are increasingly, if unevenly, tapping into large diaspora communities to spur economic growth and strengthen cultural ties.
Faced with a lack of employment opportunities and recurrent poverty, Albanian youth migrate to Italy alone in the hopes of improving their educational prospects or making money for their families. Yet upon arrival, they face many vulnerabilities. While some protections for unaccompanied minors exist in the Italy, the system is greatly fragmented and challenges, including how to return them to Albania, remain persistent.
From ongoing emigration flows and a surge in asylum seekers, to more than 150,000 returnees, this country profile examines contemporary and historical migration trends in Albania. Driven by extreme poverty and unemployment, more than one-third of Albania's population has emigrated in the last 25 years. The government now seeks to capitalize on diaspora resources by linking migration and development policies.
Albania is traveling a bumpy road from totalitarianism to democracy, with sharp twists and turns in migration flows along the way, according to Kosta Barjaba.
