A Survey on Poverty in Albania: Comparison between Rural and Urban

The aim of this study is to measure and evaluate the poverty in Albania. There are three main objectives of the study. Firstly, to identify the population percentage below the poverty line in rural and urban area. Secondly, to find out if there is a gap between males and females living in poverty in these two areas. Lastly, to see if there is correlation of education and poverty rate. The methodology used to achieve the main goals of this study and to perform the necessary estimation is a primary data collection from 1000 surveys. These surveys are distributed based on the official geographical division of Albania according to the allocation method of INSTAT and distribution of questioners is based on the percentage of population density for each region.The results show that the poverty rate of Albania in 2016 is around 25% and the female population is highly affected from the poverty. 17% of the population under the poverty line are found to be females. Meanwhile, the people living in poverty in rural zones are lower comparing to the urban ones. The reasons for this unexpected result is the high migration of the population from rural zones to urban zones and to developed countries. Another reason is that the rural population can have some additional incomes form the remittances and the agriculture. Lastly, the study finds that the population with a higher education level is generally having a relatively higher income level.