Alarm: This had not happened since Ahmet Zogu's (Photo) time in Albania

Demographic data is signaling an alarming situation more than expected in the first quarter of 2018.

The first - time natural extension has entered negative territory at least since 1923, when the first official provision of the population, in the time of King Zog, was established.

Since then, Albania's population has known only growth by not stopping at the time of World War II to change this year alone.

According to official INSTAT data for the first time, the deaths were more than births in the first quarter of the year. During the first quarter 2018, 5,669 people were born and 5,954 died, causing people who separated from this life to be 285 more than the number of babies who came to life.

High migration and a low number of births seem to have been leading the population to decline in temperatures more than predictions.

Population projections 2011-2031, according to the average scenario, expected the population's natural addition to the negative in 2023, while the optimistic version expected natural addition to be negative in 2028. But real developments show that the population's performance in this way is not actually predicted by the most pessimistic version of demographic experts.

The country's population has entered a difficult transition since the era of the empire, where official population data date.

Albania's first official population statistics were the 1923 census, with a total of 83,000 inhabitants. Population growth accelerated from its independence declaration in 1912-1944 to 0.7% annually. That was partly because Albania had the highest birth rate and the lowest death rate in Europe at the time. After World War II, population growth policies followed by the communist government and a life expectancy fostered an annual growth of 2.5 percent for the next 45 years. After the 1990 ' s, the population showed an average decline of about 0.3 percent annually, caused by migration. In the 2001 census, the population decreased to 3.023,000, down from approximately 3.3 million in 1990. (See below population progress graph 1950-2015)

The number of births in the first quarter of 2018 results in 5,669, marking a decline of 18.0 %, compared to the first quarter 2017. The number of deaths in the first quarter of 2018 results in 5,954, marking a drop of 12,3 %, compared to the first quarter 2017, as natural additions scored 285 people.

The natural growth of the population in 2011 where the last provision was 15,761 individuals, while in 7 years later the deterioration has been very high. In 1990 the population's natural addition was over 63 thousand.

If they consider immigration, then the population decline in our country will be faster than all predictions even pessimistic. If the borders were closed for the next 20 years, the number of births would have increased even more by 2020 compared to the forecast from the high growth scenario regardless of low fertility.

Continued migration and few births will burden this structural effect on future natural growth limits. International migration neto manifests a tendency contrary to natural growth.

The situation does not seem optimistic even according to the UN. The United Nations organization in its forecast for the Albanian population according to the fertility rate predicted in the pessimistic Variant that in 2100, Albania's population will be only 860 thousand. While the normal scenario envisions Albania being populated by only 1 million and 600 thousand people. The optimistic scenario envisioning zero migration and normal performance of fertility rates predicts that the country's population by 2 million and 800 thousand people, out of about 2.9 million currently counted.