CIAO: The Current State of Democracy in Albania

V. Transformations In Albanian Social Life

Summer, 1996

Victoria Velkoff

U.S. Bureau of the Census

I will start with a brief overview, looking at some statistics for Albania, and then I will tell you about a project that we are doing with USAID in Albania. I have here the population and age structure of Albania in 1994, and you will notice that it is a very young population, concentrated in the younger ages, and this is due to the fact that Albania historically has had a very high fertility rate. In 1960, it had a total fertility rate of 6.9% and that has decreased over the years to about 3.0% in 1990, but that is still very high for Eastern Europe. The rest of the Eastern European countries have total fertility rates that are much lower, under 2%.

This next category is the population by age, sex and marital status. The majority of people over the age of 25 are married; there is very little divorce, and widowhood does not really become a problem until the very later ages for women.

One of the interesting things about Albania is the proportion of the population that lives in rural areas. Only 36% of the population lives in urban areas, very low for Eastern Europe. There is, however, a wide variation by district. There are only three regions in which over 45% of the population lives in urban areas. By comparison, 58% of Macedonia's population lives in urban areas.

There are many differences between urban and rural areas, especially family size. The majority of the urban families have four or fewer members, while the opposite is true of the rural areas, where about 60% have at least five or more members.

Another interesting feature about Albania is that its population is very literate. It is a highly educated population, similar to the rest of Eastern Europe. In the urban areas over 90% of the males and females are literate. Rural areas also boast high rates of literacy.

There are, however, some differences in educational level. Urban and rural areas differ in terms of educational attainment, though the differences between men and women are not that striking. About half of the literate men and women have either 4 years of primary or 7-8 years of primary schooling, and about half have secondary or university-level in the urban areas. In the rural areas, a very small proportion has university-level education for both men and women, and only about 20% have secondary education.

One reason to look at education is that it affects many different aspects of life. In particular, it affects women's fertility rates, which average 2.9 children born for urban women and 4.1 children for rural women. But the level of education matters much more than place of residence; illiterate women have the highest number of children, 6.1 in rural areas and 5.6 for urban areas, and it decreases as the level of education goes up.

Albanian women, like most women in Eastern Europe, are very active in the labor force. In 1989 they accounted for just under half of the workers in the economy. Women tend to dominate in health care, education, and trade, which is very similar to the rest of Eastern Europe. They also make up about half the agricultural workers and a substantial proportion of the workers in industry. Over 55% of all workers work in agriculture, the main field of employment for both men and women. Industry is the second largest employer.

In Eastern Europe generally, but especially in Albania and Macedonia, unemployment has been rising. It was under 10% in 1989, but by the second quarter of 1993 it reached over 30%. Women are affected by unemployment more than men: the unemployment rate for women was 37% versus 29% for men in the second quarter of 1993. Again, this is very similar to the rest of Eastern Europe, where women tend to be the primary victims of unemployment.

Let me now mention project we are conducting in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UN Statistical Office. We are providing training on gender statistics, evaluation and analysis, and will teach people how to use statistics to influence policy makers. We are going to go to Albania this spring to conduct a data inventory to see what data are available and also make a training needs assessment. We will return probably in the fall and hold a 2-week workshop with the goal of developing a four-page brief using gender statistics on a certain issue. The workshop participants will produce this abstract.

Mari Clarke (Office of Women in Development, USAID): I would like to add that we will be working very closely with the Albanian government's statistical office. Individuals from various ministries will be involved. Our goal is to provide them with the training and skills for analysis, to provide the kind of data that the commission will need, and to facilitate coordination between ministries, emphasizing the women's office in the Ministry of Labor.

Silva Mitro

USAID (Tirana)

As an Albanian woman, I am happy to be here to talk about women's issues in Albania and what USAID is doing. During the transition period Albania has had many problems, and many of which influence women's rights. Many industries have been closed down and consequently the unemployment rates are very high. I believe that more than 50% of the unemployed are women. One of the reasons is that there serious problems with electricity and water in Albania. The distribution systems for electricity and water are very, very old. While the consumption of electricity is higher compared to past years during the old regime. Quite often we have black-outs and no water at all, even for one hour a day. Under these conditions, housekeeping requires more time and energy. This influences women's interests. They are less interested starting a business, I would say, but not in finding a job, because they need the money and they are used to the work. Most of the people in business are men.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you about the situation in the rural areas. The privatization of land has had a rather bad influence on women there, because they are more isolated now, have to take care of daily work and housekeeping, and they have no possibility to engage in social communication or interaction.

Due to the policies of the old regime, family planning methods have not been introduced in the country and abortion rates are very high. Contraception methods are not widely known and even in cases where women know about them, they are scared to use them because they fear side effects. Cultural considerations also play a role in this.

So there are two major problems: unemployment and family planning. Under these conditions, USAID is trying to do something. Tiranë University Hospital has entered into a partnership with Bronx Hospital here in New York. One of the components of this partnership is women's health. Hopefully, it will have a family planning component. We are also planning to start a family planning program independently of this partnership. The situation of women in rural areas is really difficult. Land o' Lakes is in Tiranë working with rural women in a beautiful setting, trying to help them improve the quality of their product and introducing marketing skills. And this has been one of USAID's most successful projects in Albania.

We are also planning a training program for the employees of the department of women in the labor ministry. A quota has been imposed; 40% of the participants who go to the United States for training have to be female. I will be happy to take questions now.

QUESTIONS

Question: Are there educational programs teaching women and doctors about birth control? I understand that many doctors encourage abortions rather than birth control for financial reasons.

Mitro: That is true. Doctors do not encourage women to use family planning methods, and abortions are a very good source of income for them. State salaries are very, very low, which is one of the reasons that corruption is so high in the medical field. As far as I know, the UN Development Program (UNDP) wants to start an Information-Education-Communication (IEC) program, trying to work with the media and television. If there is no infusion of salaries, I do not think it is going to work. So that is why an IEC project would be the best solution at this point.

Question: What is the relative price of an abortion versus a year's supply of contraceptive pills?

Clarke: It varies. There are actually two family planning projects in operation right now, one by the World Health Organization in concert with the ministry of health, and one being run by IPTF, and both provide free birth control. You can also purchase contraceptives in pharmacies for a nominal price, but an abortion costs anywhere from 500 to 1,000 leks.

Question: To what extent, putting what we are discussing in context, is there a movement to return to old traditions in post-communist Albania? Is there a cultural war going on for the future of the country? Who is defining Albania? Is the return to Albania defined by religion, by customs, by mores which communism frustrated or derailed?

Mitro: I cannot say whether tradition is going to win over progress. I can tell you that women are trying to do something for themselves. They are starting to organize NGOs. Among the Albanian community of NGOs, women's NGOs are the best. I am the contact person in the office for the NGOs and I can give you a list of them if you want to go to Albania and see. Albanian women have always worked and they are used to the social changes because the old regime tried to integrate women into social life as a policy. This was one of the few advantages of the old regime.

Question: What is the legislation in Albania concerning maternity?

Mitro: An Albanian woman is entitled to take one year of maternity leave and during the first four months earn about 80% of her salary, and 60% in the following months. Therefore, women can take care of the children in a situation where the day care centers are not really in good shape. On the other hand, this is kind of pro-maternalist.

Question: I think it is a mistake to label everything that comes from outside as "progress." The past culture and generations which brought us to this stage and survived do not necessarily need to be changed in a hurry. Progress will be slow, and I think the youth in Albania should take slow steps, and understand what they are doing, where they are going, without jeopardizing the future.

Question: If you look back to American history in the 1930s and the depths of our Great Depression, there was a level of unemployment similar to the current level in Albania. We had a lot of potential political instability. We had communist movements, we had fascist movements. It is not surprising that Albania has quite a bit of tension in its current political situation.

Question: Have any of the experiences of development programs elsewhere in the world proved useful in Albania? For instance, there was a successful program in Bangladesh that provided small low-interest loans to women in rural areas.

Clarke: Actually, we have drawn on the experiences of programs in other countries. And the Grameen model that you refer to is a very useful one.

Question: How influential is Islam in Albania today, and how does that affect women's interests? Also, to what extent is the women's movement an American import alien to Albanian tradition?

Mitro: Religion is not a big influence on the psychology of Albanians. Not at all. It is a potential risk, but for the moment I cannot say that it is dangerous. This is because religion has no strong tradition in Albania. Islam was imported. Albanians are not very religious. To a certain extent, you can see a moderate influence of religion. Some women prefer to have their babies at home, but I cannot say it is an important factor. I also do not think that we are subjecting women's lives to Americanization. We have our own traditional life, our culture, but we are trying to improve our lives.

Question: I spent about a year in Albania in 1992-1993, and what I saw in Albania is something that we see in this country, which is that women who go to high school or college tend to be more "liberated" or more Western and more focused on their jobs. The disparity is not between those women who are exposed to Americans, which I think was the basis of the original question, versus those women who are not. I think that the differences are between those who were educated and those who were not. I do not think that there is necessarily Americanization of women or even of Albanian culture, I think it is just a natural progress.

Janet Reineck: Let me say a few things about Kosova. With the political change that has taken place since 1989-90, a parallel system was created. This has had a huge impact on all aspects of social life. Education has taken drastic turns. My understanding after living there is that the schools have not been closed to Albanian students; that is not exactly true. Albanian children still go to the grammar schools. Usually, they are divided somehow either physically or temporally. Either they go in shifts, or they go in separately from the Serbian children. There are so many Albanian children in these schools, however, that they end up going in five or six shifts during the day. So you have fifth graders going to school for two hours, because that is all the time there is in these schools, two to three hours. You have first graders going out to school at six o'clock at night. Its very bizarre. Parallel private high schools have been started in private homes. In high schools there is a euphoria similar to that mentioned earlier with reference to Macedonia. But this euphoria, which accompanies the social and political movement of 1990, has waned to some extent, and that has affected the schools a lot. In the beginning these schools in private homes were an experiment in civil society, the likes of which Albanians had not experienced before. There was great enthusiasm for these private schools. The people who donated their homes were heroes. Kids came and sat on the floors and on rough-hewn wooden benches. People are understandably a little sick now of sitting on benches or on floors after five years. The teachers are tired of having nothing in their room but a little crummy black board, and no books or other materials. There is a lot more we can say about the education system, but it is in the throes of great problems.

The Albanian health-care system is also troubled. Most Albanian doctors were fired from their jobs, gynecologists first of all. Albanian women are afraid to give birth. They really fear Serbian doctors. Some of that fear is justified, because the Serbian doctors that were sent to Kosova were often inexperienced and not very competent. And if you have money to grease the doctor's palm, your ethnicity does not matter. Abortions cost 70-100 marks, but there are often complications because doctors are not equipped to perform those procedures. So women often choose to bear their children at home, which has caused a huge increase in infant mortality and death of mothers in childbirth. An enormous parallel health system has been set up by the Mother Theresa Society, which now has about 40 branches, 6 in Pristina alone.