Albania's Census Shows Population Fell by 14% Since 2011
Albania's population fell from 2.8 million in 2011 to 2.4 million, according to the newly-published results of the 2023 census – with figures showing a sharp rise in the percentage of elderly citizens.
Figures published on Friday from Albania’s 2023 headcount shows the
total population has fallen by around 409,000 people, or some 14 per cent, since the 2011 census, when some 2.8 milion people lived in the country.
“There are [now] 2,412,113 inhabitants, who make up 755,950 families with an average size of 3.2 members per family and who live in 1,082,529 ordinary homes,” the head of the Institute of Statistics, INSTAT, Elsa Dhuli, told a press conference.
The census took place from September to November 2023 after being delayed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic and an earthquake in 2019.
Jorida Tabaku, an opposition MP, told BIRN that the long delay in the publication of the final results had been “pointless”, noting that the 2011 census did not need six months for the publication of the results, and when the technology has become better now.
“This shows not only a lack of seriousness on the part of the government but also a weak administration. I don’t know why it needed so much time for such a small country,” Tabaku told BIRN.
Tabaku highlighted the migration issue and the clear ageing of the population.
“Unfortunately, Albanians have decreased by 400,000 inhabitants, proving the immigration crisis and the continuous depopulation that has not only increased the average age of our country by two years to 42 years but also the decrease in the number of young people. From the INSTAT figures … young people have decreased by 6.4% while the elderly have increased by 13.7%,; we have more elderly people, and less and less young people,” she noted.
Tabaku said the trend was alarming. “In relation to historical data, the Albania of 2024 is less in number than the Albania of 1976, and this is another alarming sign, not just because we have decreased [compared] to the population five decades ago but because … the aging of the country is [now] inevitable,” she concluded.
Albania’s government has been the target of criticism from the opposition over mass migration, which Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama has dismissed many times, claiming it is a normal “historical trend”.
In the summer of 2022 alone, some 12,000 Albanians crossed the sea from France to Britain in small boats. According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, some 16,000 Albanians applied for asylum in Britain in 2022; roughly 12,000 of them arrived irrregularly by small boats across the Channel.
The 2011 census drew widespread criticism for allegedly under-counting the Roma and Egyptian communities in Albania, which had a knock-on effect, as budgetary funds allocated for minorities for education, employment and social welfare are relsted to their overall numbers.
Albania's population fell from 2.8 million in 2011 to 2.4 million, according to the newly-published results of the 2023 census – with figures showing a sharp rise in the percentage of elderly citizens.
balkaninsight.com
