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Migration is perhaps the single most important political, social, and economic phenomena in post-communist Albania, and has been a dominating fact of everyday life in the last decade. Since 1990 approximately one fifth of the total population of the country has left and is living abroad, and Albania has experienced large scale movements of population from rural to urban areas.
Migration, whether rural to urban or international to Italy or Greece, is often the most important livelihood coping strategy employed by rural households, and serves as an important escape valve for unemployment and other economic difficulties brought on by the transition to a market economy. While in the past fomenting migration out of rural areas was perceived as a potential solution to the problem of rural poverty in Albania, migration is also increasingly contributing to social dislocation, agricultural labour shortages and rapid deterioration in the provision of social services in urban areas.
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