Following in their footsteps: an analysis of the impact of successive migration on rural household welfare in Ghana

Eva-Maria Egger,Julie Litchfield

doi:10.1186/s40176-018-0136-4

Abstract

We explore patterns of successive migration within rural households in Ghana and the impact that these successive migrants have on household welfare outcomes. Specifically, we use a household panel survey collected in 2013 and 2015. We exploit the panel nature of the data and a weighting method to overcome sources of bias. Welfare is measured with an index of housing quality. We find that successive migrants face lower migration costs, and few of them remit. We find no effect of sending a new migrant on the housing quality index. We conclude that the different nature of migration of successive migrants implies neither an economic gain for the household nor a loss. The reason is that the successive migration becomes less costly for migrants from households with prior migration experience, but at the same time, these migrants remit less or not at all compared to earlier waves of migrants.

Highlights

Internal migration is a common and sizeable phenomenon in many developing countries
We look at new migrants, because it appears to be common for households to have more than one migrant and to see them move at different times
This estimates the average effect on the change in the housing quality index for households with a new migrant between the baseline and the follow-up survey compared to households without a new migrant

Summary

Introduction

Internal migration is a common and sizeable phenomenon in many developing countries. Differences in regional economic performance induce people to leave poorer areas and move to those where more and better opportunities are located. In Ghana, around 35% of people in the population Census of 2010 had moved from their place of birth to another location within the country (Ghana Statistical Service 2013a). Many people move from poorer to richer regions, some move with the whole household and others send a member of the household (Litchfield and Waddington 2003; Molini et al 2016). Internal migration plays an important role in poverty reduction and economic development at the individual, household and macroeconomic level. Migration of a household member can insure the sending household against income

Methods

Results

Conclusion