The headlines in Albanian media these days read like a doomsday movie. Emigration devastating the country. No youth left in the countryside. Lowest birth to death ratio ever. Ninety-two percent of medical students plan to leave Albania.
As the British Home Office and public worry over the record number of Albanians crossing the channel to the UK – reportedly 12,000 this year, up from 50 in 2020 – in Albania people are immersed in the other side of the story. The country is depopulating. Quickly.
Just last week, Instat, the country’s official statistics body, put out another grim number. Births are down nearly 20% compared to last year, and in places like Gjirokastra County in the south they are the lowest since records began. "The birth rate is constantly decreasing,” says Migena Karo, an obstetrician in Gjirokastra. “But it’s not a surprise. It is clearly related to people in their child-bearing years leaving.”
