Young people are leaving Albania/ 62% of immigrants are under 35 years old, young families are also leaving

2026-03-02 07:15:00, Aktualitet CNA

Young people are leaving Albania/ 62% of immigrants are under 35 years old,

Albania continues to suffer from population hemorrhage even after more than 30 years of transition, dominated by the departure of young people. Eurostat data showed that in 2024 alone, around 44,000 Albanians emigrated to European Union countries.

After the pandemic alone, in 4 years, for the period 2021-2024, at least 180 thousand people have left the country, and this does not include data from Greece or the United Kingdom, with the latter seeing a wave of departures that peaked in 2022. The pace of emigration accelerated after the pandemic.

Eurostat has also published detailed data by age group of people who left Albania in 2024. According to the processing of "Monitor", the dominance of young people is evident. The main group leaving is between 25-29 years old, with over 6 thousand people, or 14.3% of the total. After them come young people aged 30 to 34, with 13% of the total.

A strong phenomenon is the departure of young families with young children, as the age group under 15 years old accounted for almost 18% of those who left.

In total, 62% of people who emigrated in 2024 were under 35. A significant, vital and experienced part of the labor market is also preferring to leave, with the 35-49 age group accounting for 20% of those who left.

Historical INSTAT data shows that there is a decrease in the age of immigration. For example, in 2019, the main age group that emigrated was between 30-34 years old, with 15.6% of the total.

The departure of young people is one of the main reasons that the median age (the one that divides the population in half) has increased at a much faster rate than in the European Union. Other Eurostat data showed that Albania had a median age of 44.3 years in 2025, very close to the European average of 44.9 years.

In 2015, the median age was 34.7 years. This means that in 2025, half of the population was under 44.3 years old, while 10 years ago Albania was much younger, with half of the population being younger than 34.7 years old.

The departure of the reproductive age group and the change in lifestyle have caused births to fall significantly in recent years. Albania is experiencing one of the deepest demographic crises in its modern history. The latest figures for 2025 show a drastic drop in the number of births by about 74% compared to the beginning of the 1990s, when Albania recorded a record of 82,125 births, while 35 years later, this number has dropped to the critical level of 21,425 births.

The main factors that have fueled this trend are the progressive aging of the population, the departure of young people, which is continuing at a high rate, and the decrease in the fertility rate to only 1.21 children per woman.

This change in the family model, combined with the flight of the reproductive force towards the EU, has placed the country before an existential challenge, which is not being taken seriously at all by the government, on the contrary, the latter is spreading the narrative that emigration has stopped and returns now dominate, when the complete opposite is happening.

INSTAT data on net migration, which measures the difference between those returning and those leaving, is negative, with people leaving more than double those returning. In 2024, net migration reached around -43,761 people, the highest level recorded also due to corrections from the 2023 census. In 2025, although decreasing, the indicator remained very high, around -28,836 people. /Monitor