Migration and poverty in Albania: what factors are associated with an individual's predisposition to migrate?

Abstract

The last decade of the 20th century witnessed one of the largest economic experiments of that century as former communist countries embarked on attempts to transform their economies from centrally planned to market-based systems. The transformation process influenced the direction of economic policies and shaped the nature of social policies, business practices and institutions. The collapse of the central planning system in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union also provided the erstwhile citizens of many communist regimes with opportunities to migrate abroad. The mass exodus anticipated in some of the early writings on the transition process did not materialize and over the decade migration flows to the West were generally modest in comparison to original expectations. However, Albania proved something of an exception to this general rule and the country experienced a steady increase in its number of emigrants living abroad over the first decade of its transition. By the end of the decade over one-fifth of the Albanian population were estimated to be abroad, representing the largest outflow relative to population of any transitional economy. In more recent years some progress has been made in Albania as the government, under the framework of the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), embarked on reforms designed to stimulate economic growth and improve living standards. In the early years of the current decade, Albania has registered steady economic growth, reductions in the unemployment rate and a more stable inflationary environment. Structural programmes have been introduced to tackle financial regulation, land reform and privatization. In addition, there has been a strengthening of governance systems and an anti-corruption plan is in the process of implementation. In spite of some positive economic developments, poverty remains high in Albania and per capita income is one of the lowest of all the transitional countries. The World Bank’s recent poverty assessment estimated that