Oct 16, 2024 – Over 46% of Albania’s population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to a recent report by the European Statistics Agency, Eurostat. The data, based on 2021 figures, reveals that poverty remains a significant issue across the country, with nearly equal rates in all regions.
The southern region recorded a 46.5% poverty risk, while the central and northern regions reported slightly higher rates of 46.6% and 46.7%, respectively. These figures place Albania among the highest in the Western Balkans in terms of poverty risk. By comparison, neighboring Montenegro has 34.1%, North Macedonia 32.6%, and Serbia 30%. Data for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo was not available.
In contrast, Eurostat’s 2023 data for the European Union shows that about 21.4% of the EU’s population, or approximately 94.6 million people, are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The highest levels were found in remote French regions, southern Italy, and rural parts of Romania.
In Albania, the threshold for the risk of poverty is defined by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) as an annual income below 225,931 leks for 2022. This represents a rise from the previous year, when the poverty risk threshold was 191,791 leks. INSTAT also reports a decrease in the number of people living below the poverty threshold, from 622,705 in 2021 to an estimated 576,316 in 2022.
