Modeling Migration Dynamics in Albania. A Hazard Function Approach.
Carlo Azzarri, Calogero Carletto
The World Bank
Development Research Group
Poverty and Inequality Team
May 2009
Since 1990 migration flows from Albania have been massive, relative to the size of the country and its population, but they have also fluctuated over time. This paper presents and discusses various descriptive trends, mainly in graphical form. The data come from the Albanian Living Standards Measurement Survey, 2005 round, and cover the period 1990–2004. The resulting observed trends reflect changing push and pull factors in Albania and the two main host countries, Greece and Italy. The paper also presents a hazard approach to modeling Albanian emigration and return migration.
This analysis highlights, among other things, the relevance of networks in Albanian migration dynamics, both to promote emigration and to delay return.

Following the fall of Communism and the opening of the borders in the early 1990s, massive migration from the transition economies in Eastern Europe towards more affluent Western neighbors seemed certain. However, despite rising unemployment and poverty, the mass exodus never materialized, except in a few cases. Albania is one such case.
Migration, whether rural to urban or international, has emerged as the most common livelihood coping strategy in Albania, and has served as an important escape valve for unemployment and other economic difficulties brought on by the transition to a market economy. Driven by these dire economic conditions, and facilitated by geographical proximity and the lure of Western affluence transmitted through Italian television channels (Mai 2001), many Albanian households perceived migration, whether temporary or permanent, as an effective strategy for sustaining and improving their economic livelihoods. This view was amply reflected in the government’s complacent position towards emigration, which was seen, at least initially, as a means of exporting unemployment and importing wealth.
During the communist era (1944-90), migration had come to a virtual halt, as it was officially prohibited, and emigrants and family members left behind had been ostracized or severely punished. When the communist government eventually fell, the end of the controls on internal and external migration and the collapse of the centrally planned economy unleashed a demographic shift at an unprecedented pace, as individuals and entire households started migrating to the cities or leaving the country altogether. By many accounts, within a decade the number of Albanians abroad swelled to at least 600,000 individuals (King and Vullnetari 2003) or as high as 800,000 (Barjaba 2000). More recent estimates increase the figure to over 1 million (Government of Albania 2005).