Albania - Poverty and wealth

Poverty in Albania is widespread due to limited job opportunities, low income, and limited access to basic services such as education, health, water, and sewerage. Under the communist regime, employment was almost total, and the government provided some livelihood for nearly everyone. In the 1990s, the collapse of the state-run farms and industrial enterprises, unemployment, organized crime, and corruption generated widespread new poverty along with numerous illicit fortunes. Many families came to rely on transfers from family members abroad as 25 percent of working-age Albanians emigrated, only a fifth of them legally. More than 17 percent of the population lived under the poverty line in 2000, and 90 percent of the poor live in rural areas. Sixty percent

of those heading poor households are self-employed in subsistence farming. The situation is worse in the north, where many rural families own less than 0.5 hectares. In Tiranë, there were about 800 street children in 2000 and child laborers numbered between 35,000-50,000 as need forced them to leave school early. Drug abuse, prostitution, trafficking in women, and child abuse have all increased with the economic hardship of the 1990s.