Publication:
International mobility as a development strategy: Kosovo Country Report

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (2.8 MB)
120 downloads
English Text (319.59 KB)
23 downloads
Date
2024-07-23
ISSN
Published
2024-07-23
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Emigration has played an important role throughout Kosovo’s history. Calculations based on government figures suggest that the total number of Kosovar emigrants is nearly 800,000.1 This implies that almost one in every three people born in Kosovo lives abroad, placing Kosovo among the top five origin countries with the highest emigration rates in the world.2 Historically, emigration has been driven by both political and economic reasons, but in recent years international mobility has primarily been the result of economic motives. The majority of Kosovar migrants live in the European Union and are primarily low-skilled working age men, although recent estimates for the period 2022-2023 suggest this trend may be changing, with more migrants reporting having tertiary education (20 percent)
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2024. International mobility as a development strategy: Kosovo Country Report. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41928 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    International mobility as a development strategy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-22) World Bank
    Emigration has been an important phenomenon in Bosnia and Herzegovina for many decades. Today, about 1.7 million Bosnians are currently living in another country, implying that one in three Bosnians can be considered migrants. This emigration rate is the largest of any of all countries in Europe and Central Asia, and is second globally, only after the Republic of Syria. The Bosnian diaspora tends to reside in former Yugoslavian countries (with more than 43 percent living in Serbia and Croatia), as well as high-income countries such as Germany and Austria. There is also a sizable diaspora in North America and Australia. In the last decade, new waves of migrants have been mostly going to Germany, Slovenia and Croatia.
  • Publication
    International mobility as a development strategy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-23) World Bank
    Albania is a country with a highly mobile population. Estimates suggest that over 1.2 million Albanian citizens, or more than 44 percent of the current population, have migrated abroad. Albanian migrants are typically of working age and lower-skilled, with the majority living in neighboring Italy and Greece. In its recent history, Albania has experienced multiple waves of migration, beginning with economic migration following the collapse of the communist regime, followed by family reunification, and then most recently a diversification of types of emigration. Emigration is driven by large income differentials, with Albania having one of the lowest average wage rates in Europe, and the lowest in the Western Balkans. Albanians are also progressively moving to more and further destinations in Western Europe, particularly Germany. In accordance with these geographical shifts, the profile of migrants has also diversified, with a progressively higher share of high-skilled workers. Nevertheless, asylum seeking is still prevalent, with 193,000 Albanians seeking asylum in the EU between 2010-2019, with an acceptance rate of just about 2 percent, demonstrating the differing migration pathways.
  • Publication
    International Migration, Economic Development and Policy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) Schiff, Maurice; Özden, Çağlar
    This volume reflects the expansion of the World Bank Research Program on International Migration and Development into new substantive and geographic areas. It presents a new global migration database and includes studies of the determinants and impact of return and circular migration, the impact of the flow of ideas on fertility, host country policies and their impact on immigrants, and the impact of international migration and remittances on poverty and other development indicators. The studies cover countries from Latin America, North Africa, South Asia, the South Pacific, and Western Europe, and show that the impact of migration on education and health tends to benefit girls more than boys, that its impact on labor force participation tends to be stronger for women than men, that return migrants tend to do better than non-migrants, and that fertility has tended to decline in countries whose migration has been to the West and has failed to do so in countries whose migration has been to the Gulf. The purpose of the case studies is to illustrate and clarify many theoretical mechanisms and to advance understanding of the impact of different migration policies, given that introducing policy variables in econometric regressions is generally difficult. Each study in this volume aims to answer a variety of development- and policy-related questions using the most appropriate of these three methodologies. These empirical studies and analyses include exploration of some novel hypotheses; they are also new in terms of the topics selected and the regions/ countries examined
  • Publication
    Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
    (World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-10) Yang, Dean; McKenzie, David
    International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skilled workers being lost. As a result there is increasing interest in policies which can enhance the development benefits of international migration and mitigate these potential costs. This paper provides a critical review of recent research on the effectiveness of these policies at three stages of the migration process: pre-departure, during migration, and directed toward possible return. The existing evidence base suggests some areas of policy success: bilateral migration agreements for countries whose workers have few other migration options, developing new savings and remittance products that allow migrants more control over how their money is used, and some efforts to provide financial education to migrants and their families. Suggestive evidence together with theory offers support for a number of other policies, such as lowering the cost of remittances, reducing passport costs, offering dual citizenship, and removing exit barriers to migration. Research offers reasons to be cautious about some policies, such as enforcing strong rights for migrants like high minimum wages. Nevertheless, the paper finds the evidence base to be weak for many policies, with no reliable research on the impact of most return migration programs, nor for whether countries should be trying to induce communal remitting through matching funds.
  • Publication
    Characteristics and Determinants of Internal Labor Mobility in Ukraine
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05) Kupets, Olga
    Over the past 20 years Ukraine experienced fundamental structural changes due to transition to a market economy and integration with the world. Transition reforms accompanied by the collapse of traditional trade and production links with the other republics of the former USSR and Comecon countries entailed asymmetric effects on regions, reflecting an uneven distribution of winners and losers from transition. Geographical mobility of labor is one of the major mechanisms (alongside with capital mobility, wage and price flexibility, and institutional mechanisms for redistributing income across regions) in facilitating regional adjustment to idiosyncratic shocks. The ability of workers to move freely from one geographical location to another inside the borders of their country, in pursuing the same occupation or changing occupations, is of particular importance for efficient matching of labor demand and supply and reducing structural unemployment. This paper seeks to fill gap in the literature on patterns of internal labor mobility in Ukraine, its main characteristics and potential for reducing persistent regional labor market disparities and imbalances in economic and human development. The next chapters of the paper are organized as follows: second chapter evaluates the magnitude of disparities in regional labor market and socio-economic indicators over time, with a special focus on its potential impact on decision of individuals to migrate to another settlement; third chapter provides an overview of the available data sources on internal labor mobility in Ukraine, quantifies internal migration based on aggregate administrative data, discusses its trends over time and compares it levels to those found in developed and transition economies. Fourth chapter provides multivariate statistical analysis of the determinants of inter-regional migration in 2002-2010 based on administrative region-level data. Fifth chapter summarizes the findings of empirical studies on determinants of the migration decision of Ukrainians. Sixth chapter examines short-term labor migration including everyday commuting in 2005-2010 and measures its covariates using individual-level Labor Force Survey (LFS) data. Seventh chapter summarizes the main findings and concludes.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Municipal Waste Management in Serbia - Situational Analysis
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-19) World Bank
    This report provides a baseline analysis of the existing situation in the municipal waste management sector in Serbia and underscores the importance of the sector in terms of achieving Sustainable Cities objectives. Reforms in the waste sector are a key component of a larger government commitment to a Green Transition. Ambitions to significantly improving the solid waste management system, in line with EU requirements, is well reflected in recently adopted policies and plans including the National Waste Management Program for the period2022 – 2031. There is a significant focus on the establishment of much needed basic disposal infrastructure. However, implementation remains slow, and some waste related targets will require further alignment and adjustment as the EU landscape continues to evolve.
  • Publication
    Impact of Climate Change in Health in Colombia and Recommendations for Mitigation and Adaptation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-18) World Bank
    Climate change has been called the most important threat to human health in the 21st century. It is estimated that if thetemperature rises and its impact on the other climatic variablescontinues unchanged, it will kill more than 83 million people (1 percent of the world’s population) in the next 80 years (Wattset al. 2020)—13 times the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic (WorldHealth Organization 2023). Historically, only pandemics or worldwars have posed such threats to human health. As a result,the issue has aroused unprecedented attention. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared climate changethe greatest health threat facing humanity (WHO 2021). Now, more than 195 governments have included climate change mitigation and adaptation as pillars in their multi-year plans, and government health sectors have been developing plans tomeasure and respond to the impact of climate change on health. However, recognition of the links between climate change and health remains nascent, so these efforts have not yet been accompanied by strategic and actionable approaches to measure the impacts and ground the responses. This report contributes to addressing that gap by providing a framework for understandingthe impact of climate change on human health in Colombia and by outlining the most effective actions to mitigate the threat.
  • Publication
    South Asia’s Digital Opportunity
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-27) World Bank
    The report presents both the opportunities of and the bottlenecks for furthering the digital agenda. It emphasizes that the first step is to get the basics right. This includes enabling access to and adoption of high-quality affordable broadband, initiating a paradigm shift in building digital public platforms and accelerating digital financial services. Part of this includes integrating digital ID, digital payments, and data sharing platforms so they can become ‘digital stacks’ that allow service providers to build and innovate their own platforms and systems on top. Supporting digital businesses, fostering digital skills, and creating the necessary trust environment are also critical to the digital agenda. Further, a successful digital agenda at country levels would benefit from regional integration that entails cross-border connectivity, data infrastructure, and payment systems.
  • Publication
    Women, Business and the Law 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-02) World Bank
    “Women, Business and the Law 2023” is the ninth in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. The 2023 edition identifies barriers to women’s economic participation and encourages reform of discriminatory laws. This year, the study also includes research, a literature review, and analysis of 53 years of reforms for women’s rights. Examining the economic decisions that women make throughout their working lives as well as tracking regulatory changes from 1970 to today, the study makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic opportunities. By presenting powerful examples of change and highlighting the gaps still remaining, “Women, Business and the Law 2023” is a vital tool in ensuring economic empowerment for all. Data in “Women, Business and the Law 2023” are current as of October 1, 2022.
  • Publication
    Supporting Youth at Risk
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008) Cohan, Lorena M.; Cunningham, Wendy; Naudeau, Sophie; McGinnis, Linda
    The World Bank has produced this policy Toolkit in response to a growing demand from our government clients and partners for advice on how to create and implement effective policies for at-risk youth. The author has highlighted 22 policies (six core policies, nine promising policies, and seven general policies) that have been effective in addressing the following five key risk areas for young people around the world: (i) youth unemployment, underemployment, and lack of formal sector employment; (ii) early school leaving; (iii) risky sexual behavior leading to early childbearing and HIV/AIDS; (iv) crime and violence; and (v) substance abuse. The objective of this Toolkit is to serve as a practical guide for policy makers in middle-income countries as well as professionals working within the area of youth development on how to develop and implement an effective policy portfolio to foster healthy and positive youth development.