"Financial difficulties are holding back birth rates" - Binjaku: Albania needs stronger policies for young families
Population decline is no longer just a prediction, but a statistical reality. According to the Institute of Statistics, last year alone we had 1,885 fewer births than the year before. But what does this tell us about married couples? And what should be the supportive incentives for raising a child?
" As for the incentives that the Albanian state should take to help young families, so that they can plan the birth of a child and make it possible not only to replace themselves, but even more so, to give continuity to our society, these incentives should be extended to many levels. In my opinion, one of these is the baby bonus. It is true that from that ridiculous bonus of the past that mostly depersonalized young mothers or young families when they went to the doors of institutions to withdraw it, we passed from that phase and went to another phase that is certainly much better where for the birth of the first child this bonus was 40 thousand new lek that is currently given and for the second child 80 thousand new lek and so on. Again, this is not being reflected in the increase in fertility. Which in my opinion shows that this bonus is again insufficient to stimulate the young Albanian family so that it can do not hesitate and do not have the financial difficulty of bringing up a child first. I think that another formula has been found again, I hope that this formula will be implemented and will be truly sustainable and that it is related to the extension of the baby bonus to five years, which is certainly a source that is sustainable or continuous for young families, but I hope that it will remain so and we expect that it will give these effects. As for other initiatives, I think that they are closely related to financial support, when it comes to the first year of a child's life. Subsidizing those necessary clothes or necessary tools for this child. I think that another initiative would be good support with soft loans, in the sense that young families who have difficulty even securing a home, have such an initiative where they can turn to the local government in order to secure housing. Soft loans, to my knowledge, are an annual program, but they still remain insufficient compared to the needs of young families. "Another financial measure that I think would help would be to support with programs small businesses that they may have, or initiatives such as startups that young people have, especially in innovative fields such as technology or green ventures, or those that are the current buzzword related to free initiatives," says Entela Binjaku, Sociologist.
According to sociologist Binjaku, the main cause remains financial difficulties.
"Financial difficulties are one of the reasons that young families themselves claim when they intend to have a child. They argue financial difficulties with the difficulties in raising and caring for the child according to the standard that they require their child to have in the time we live in. Of course, they also report this financial difficulty when it comes to programming the behavior in the life of a child. So the entire phase from conception to the moment of birth, but also the first year of life and beyond, is a huge financial burden for them despite the great and good desire they have to give the best possible to the child. They also report other financial difficulties to enable the realization of a pregnancy. We must not forget that currently we are talking about young families who have difficulties in achieving a pregnancy and when they want to resort to methods known today, they are still very expensive and again this prevents or stops them and they are unable to resort to these forms.”
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