The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in a 2020 report found that Albania ranked fourth in the world for the increase in the emigration rate of persons with high working abilities for the period 2000/2001 until 2015/2016.
For the period in question, the increase in the emigration rate of persons with high working abilities is 14.6 percentage points (pp), after Liberia (27.9) and Bhutan (15.4) and at the same level as Moldova. After Albania is ranked Romania, with an increase of 11.8pp. In general, intellectuals have fled the entire Balkans. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, the increase is 11.5pp, for North Macedonia 10pp.
Albania is also ranked among the top 10 countries in the world for the emigration rate of people with high abilities, having this indicator 38.1%, which according to the OECD table is positioned in the eighth place in the world for the rate of departure of intellectuals. Albania has been affected for decades by the massive emigration of the population, whose curve is not mitigating, but the abandoning of the educated persons is at alarming levels.
Immigration is a phenomenon that affects the lowest income countries and all strata of the population, but the educated tend to emigrate more. According to the report, in Europe, the Balkan countries are among the largest sources of migrants. For example, Albania has a total emigration rate of 29%, Bosnia and Herzegovina of 20% and North Macedonia of 18%.
In general, the emigration levels of people with higher education are almost always higher than the total emigration levels. This positive selection of migrants is related to several factors: not only do individuals with higher education usually have more financial opportunities to engage in interstate migration than their lower-qualified counterparts but also many OECD countries have adopted more favorable migration policies for people with high abilities.
The overall emigration rate of highly educated individuals to OECD countries with high welfare is 16% in 2015-16. It is 5% for those with secondary education. However, there are major differences across countries of origin. For example, countries such as Mozambique and Somalia have high immigration rates of approximately 30%, and these double to over 66% in the case of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.
As for the high number of educated migrants to the OECD area, India leads with over 3 million highly educated migrants, followed by China (2 million) and the Philippines (1.8 million). OECD countries themselves have a large number of educated people working in other countries. Approximately 1.4 million Germans and 1.7 million Britons with university degrees reside in other OECD countries.
Among the low-educated, the emigration rate is 5.4% for men and 5.8% for women. Among the highly educated, the emigration rate of men and women is almost at 8.6%. A previous study by professors Ilir Gedeshi and Russell King, showed that Albania ranks among the countries for high emigration of educated people with scientific degrees. The number of Albanian students in OECD countries increased by 430% in 2016 compared to 2000./abcnews.al
