Chinese Migration to Ghana: Challenging the Orthodoxy on Characterizing Migrants and Reasons for Migration

Abstract

While there is evidence that Chinese migration to Africa has increased in recent years, there is a generalpaucity of data on the total number of Chinese migrants living in African countries and their sociodemographiccharacteristics. The reasons for this situation include challenges associated with capturingimmigrants in Africa censuses, lack of robust sampling frames to draw representative samples fromimmigrant populations, high level of irregular migration, and weak migrants tracking systems. Relying onqualitative data and quantitative survey, based on an innovative sampling technique, this paper examines themigration of Chinese migrants to Ghana. The findings challenge simplistic narratives that present the Chinesemigrants as a homogenous group. Despite the general perception that Chinese migrants in Ghana areundocumented and lack higher education qualifications, our findings reveal that most Chinese migrants arehighly educated persons with legal documentation. While the existing literature focuses on economic pushand pull factors of migration to Ghana, the paper demonstrates the importance of social networks, economicpotentials and peaceful environment in driving migration to Ghana. Based on these findings, we stronglyrecommend the need for an informed narrative on Chinese migration to Africa by governments, media, andacademics to deal with the misconceptions and generalizations.