 |
| Empty newborn beds in Tirana's Queen Geraldine Maternity |
The year 2022 ended with the lowest number of births in Albania in at least the last 6 decades.
As Prime Minister Rama congratulated the first 11 babies of 2023, he declared that the baby bonus was given to 42,000 children last year.
But those children of Albanian families born abroad also receive the bonus. While within our country, the State Institute of Statistics, known locally by the acronym 'INSTAT', shows an almost twice lower number of births, local media reports.
For the first nine months of 2022, only 17 thousand babies were born in the whole country, while in total for the year this figure is not expected to exceed 24 thousand. A figure 30% lower than at the beginning of the Rama government's first term, when Albanian maternity hospitals were expecting over 35 thousand newborns every year.
The main reasons for the decline in the birth rate are mostly related to the emigration of young people, but also to economic and social insecurities.
The government has currently decided on the baby bonus as the only instrument to react to the decrease in births. This policy last year offered about 3 billion leks to new mothers, in the form of payment of 40,000 leks for the first child, 80,000 leks for the second child, and 120,000 leks for the third child.