Thumbnail Image

Internal mobility and international migration in Albania

Year of publication 2004

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Series title FAO Agricultural Economics Working Paper

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Using evidence from two recent data sources – the 2002 Albania Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) and the 2001 Population Census of Albania – the paper documents the phenomena of internal and external migration in Albania, a country that in the past decade has experienced dramatic changes as it makes its transition to a more open market economy. Albania is a country on the move, both internally and internationally. This mobility plays a key role in household-level strategies to cope wit h the economic hardship of transition and it is perhaps the single most important political, social, and economic phenomenon in post-communist Albania. The order of magnitude of the observed flows is astonishing. Almost one half of all Albanian households have had direct exposure to migration events, either through direct temporary migration of a household member or through their children living abroad. One out of two children who since 1990 no longer live with their parents is now living abro ad, primarily in Greece and Italy. For obvious reasons, Greece also remains the preferred destination of temporary migrants, although – and despite the higher costs associated with it – the shares of Albanians temporarily migrating to Italy and Germany have increased substantially in recent years. The paper also provides a micro level analysis of the household’s migration decision. The role of household and community characteristics, including relative deprivation and the importance of social networks, in the decision to migrate are assessed.

Language Trilingual

Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Agency, Education and Networks: Gender and International Migration from Albania 2008
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    Our paper examines the causes and dynamics of the shift in the gender composition of migration, and more particularly, in the access of women to migration opportunities and decision making. We do this in the context of Albania, a natural laboratory for studying migration developments given that out-migration was practically eliminated from the end of WWII to the end of the 1980s. We use micro-level data from the Albania 2005 LSMS including migration histories for family members since migration b egan. Our analysis, based on discrete-time hazard models, shows an impressive expansion of female participation in international migration. Female migration, which we find to be strongly associated with education, wealth, and social capital, appears responsive to economic incentives and constraints. Yet, using unique data on the dependency of female migration to the household demographic structure as well as the sensitivity of female migration to household-level shocks, we show that it is the ho useholds themselves that are the decision-making agents behind this economic calculus and there is little to suggest that increased female migration signals the emergence of female agency.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Moving away from poverty: A spatial analysis of poverty and migration in Albania 2005
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    This paper analyses recent patterns of migration and poverty in Albania, a country that ‑ following the collapse of the communist regime in 1990 – has been experiencing high migration rates. Using a combination of survey and census data, the paper characterises spatial patterns in the distribution of poverty and migration at a high level of geographic disaggregation. The results emphasise the importance of analysing internal and international migration as different phenomena, as the two appear t o be associated in opposite ways to observed poverty and welfare levels. While poverty acts as a push factor for internal migration, it seems to be a constraining factor for the more costly international migration. The results also suggest that rural migration to urban areas contributes to the relocation of poverty in urban areas. This paper analyses recent patterns of migration and poverty in Albania, a country that ‑ following the collapse of the communist regime in 1990 – has been experi encing high migration rates. Using a combination of survey and census data, the paper characterises spatial patterns in the distribution of poverty and migration at a high level of geographic disaggregation. The results emphasise the importance of analysing internal and international migration as different phenomena, as the two appear to be associated in opposite ways to observed poverty and welfare levels. While poverty acts as a push factor for internal migration, it seems to be a constraining factor for the more costly international migration. The results also suggest that rural migration to urban areas contributes to the relocation of poverty in urban areas. Key Words: Poverty, Migration, Albania. JEL: J1, J61, I32.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Investing Back Home:Return Migration and Business Ownership in Albania
    ESA Working Paper No. 07-08
    2007
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    In view of its increasing importance, and the dearth of information on return migration and its impacts on source households, this study uses data from the 2005 Albania Living Standards Measurement Study survey and assesses the impact of past migration experience of Albanian households on non-farm business ownership through instrumental variables regression techniques. Moreover, considering the differences in earning potentials and opportunities for skill acquisition in different destination cou ntries, the impact of household past migration experience is differentiated by main migrant destinations, namely Greece, and Italy. The study also tests for the hypothesis of the existence of migration cycles, by differentiating the time spent abroad based on the year of return. The empirical results indicate that household past migration experience exerts a positive impact on the probability of owning a non-farm business. While one additional year in Greece increases the probability of househol d business ownership by roughly 7 percent, a similar experience in Italy or further destinations raises the probability by over 30 percent. Although past migration experience for the period of 1990-2000 is positively associated with the likelihood of owning a household enterprise, a similar impact does not materialize for the period of 2001-2004. The latter finding seems suggestive of the fact that more recent migrants are yet to attain a target level of required savings and skills in order to s uccessfully establish a new business upon return.
Show more

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.