Fertility in Albania during World War I according to the 1918 Census

Abstract

Apart from Kosovo, Albania was the last country in Europe to enter demographic transition and therefore an analysis of its fertility patterns before the transition is of interest. Was it higher than in neighbouring countries or similar to them? Albania was a part of the Ottoman Empire until the Balkan Wars (1912/1913) and only with the help of the Great Powers an independent Albania managed to emerge. In 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army invaded Albania and occupied the northern and central parts of the country, while the south was occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers. During the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation, a census was carried out in 1918 and most of the manuscripts have survived. To analyse the level and structure of fertility patterns in Albania, the author refers to these data applying the child-woman ratio. The analysis demonstrates that in Albanian rural areas during World War I, fertility rate was lower than in neighbouring countries one or two decades before, while urban marital fertility was higher than in most of the neighbouring countries. In Albania, marital fertility was almost the same for rural and urban areas, while there were some variations between rural areas and cities. The reason for a very low fertility of young married women is still an open question.