Labour In Ghana Research Articles

Remittances and child labour in Ghana: Does the gender of the household head matter?

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the effect of remittance income on child labour and the role of gender in Ghana. Data were sourced from the Ghana Living Standards Survey Round 6. In order to solve the issue of endogeneity, we adopt the instrumental variable approach. The study finds evidence that, irrespective of whoever is the head of the household, the total effect of remittances on child labour is negative. However, the negative effect is much higher for female-headed households. It is recommended that more mobile money transfer outlets be established and the cost of transferring money be reduced to the barest minimum so as to enable households to maximise the benefits of the remittances they receive. Furthermore, financial transfers should be given to female household heads upon the condition of school attendance by their children so as to reduce child labour.

Skilled labour shortage: a qualitative study of Ghana’s training and apprenticeship system

ABSTRACTThe impacts of training and apprenticeship education towards building high-level technical and vocational skills that support human capital development and attracting foreign direct investment are being reshaped by global competition. This article draws on human capital theory to report on a qualitative study that explores skilled labour challenges within Ghana’s training and apprenticeship system through the lens of the demand side of employment perspective. The findings point to a training mismatch, lack of regulations and ineffective apprenticeship programmes, underinvestment in education and training, and outdated training programmes. The bottlenecks in the supply of skilled labour in Ghana are hampering the firms’ ability to find skilled labour across industries. We suggest improved social partnership between industries and training institutions, with increased government investment in training and apprenticeship programmes, as a way forward to address the technical and vocational skilled labour supply bottlenecks. Wider implications for the African region which shares similar developing contexts are discussed.

Struggles over family land? Tree crops, land and labour in Ghana’s Brong-Ahafo region

Agricultural land use in much of Brong-Ahafo region, Ghana has been shifting from the production of food crops towards increased cashew nut cultivation in recent years. This article explores everyday, less visible, gendered and generational struggles over family farms in West Africa, based on qualitative, participatory research in a rural community that is becoming increasingly integrated into the global capitalist system. As a tree crop, cashew was regarded as an individual man’s property to be passed on to his wife and children rather than to extended family members, which differed from the communal land tenure arrangements governing food crop cultivation. The tendency for land, cash crops and income to be controlled by men, despite women’s and young people’s significant labour contributions to family farms, and for women to rely on food crop production for their main source of income and for household food security, means that women and girls are more likely to lose out when cashew plantations are expanded to the detriment of land for food crops. Intergenerational tensions emerged when young people felt that their parents and elders were neglecting their views and concerns. The research provides important insights into gendered and generational power relations regarding land access, property rights and intra-household decision-making processes. Greater dialogue between genders and generations may help to tackle unequal power relations and lead to shared decision-making processes that build the resilience of rural communities.

Going to Sea: Photographic Publics of the Free and Newly Freed

This essay traces the relationships between photography, migration and image-politics of work and labor in Ghana in the era of abolition. Concerns over who could move and work on their own behalf informed shifting senses of personhood and class; these were negotiated changes that inform the rapid proliferation of photographic audiences. In this case the fragmentary photographic records are expanded by oral history accounts and other public memories of migration. Though this narrative is rooted in Ghanaian diaspora to other parts of Africa, the implications for the social and historical senses of photography's relation to personhood provoke much larger questions.

Revisiting the Link Between Poverty and Child Labor: The Ghanaian Experience

The link between poverty and child labor has traditionally been regarded a well established fact. Recent research, however, has questioned the validity of this link, claiming that poverty is not a main determinant of child labor. Starting from a premise that child labor is necessarily harmful, we analyze the determinants of harmful child labor, viewed as child labor that directly conflicts with the human capital accumulation of the child in an attempt to identify the most vulnerable groups, thus possibly enabling appropriate actions to be taken by policy makers. We reinstate the positive relationship between poverty and child labor, a conjecture that has been questioned by recent litterature. Further, we find evidence of a gender gap in child labor linked to poverty, since girls as a group as well as across urban, rural and poverty sub-samples consistently are found to be more likely to engage in harmful child labor than boys. The established gender gap need not necessarily imply discrimination but rather reflect cultural norms. A further exploration of this issue seems to be a potentially fruitful avenue for further research. The last main finding is that there exist structural differences in the processes underlying harmful child labor in Ghana across gender, across rural/urban location as well as across poverty quintiles of households

Streetism And Child Labour In The Wa Municipality Of Ghana A Gender Analysis of Drivers

The challenge of child labor in Ghana, especially in Wa, has been given attention in recent times by various organizations within the country. An understudied dimension of these efforts at eradicating child labor is its gendered nature. This study was therefore conducted to unearth the gender dimension of the drivers of child labor. Specifically, it looked at the gender background of children engaged in street labor in relation to those who drive children to the streets, using the case of the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region of Ghana. Participants were those guardians and street children who were available and willing to participate in the study. Feminized poverty and gender roles and expectations were found to be critical driver of streetism. Specifically, 75% (three quarters) of the children engaged in street labor in the Wa Municipality were females. Out of those found to drive children to the streets of Wa, 75% were females and 5% were males while 20% of children on the streets went there on their own. The domination of girl children in street labor was attributed to perceptions such as extension of domestic roles and likely performance and/or teenage pregnancy. The study therefore revealed that certain socio-cultural practices and beliefs work against the girl child and until some of these practices are unearthed and dealt with, no amount of poverty eradication and educational campaigns would set the victims free.

Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way

Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way

Real wages and the demand for skilled and unskilled male labour in Ghana's manufacturing sector: 1991–1995

Real wage rates in Ghana have fallen substantially over the last 20 years. In this paper survey data for the years 1991–1995 is used to assess the changes which have occurred in the 1990s. It is shown that the real wage rate for the unskilled has continued to fall. Factor share equations for skilled and unskilled labour are estimated, which show the rise in skilled wages leading to substitution to unskilled labour but no rise in the share of skilled labour in income. The own price elasticities of skilled and unskilled labour are estimated at −0.44 and −0.52, respectively.

Interregional migration of labor in Ghana, West Africa: determinants, consequences and policy intervention.

This article examines the determinants, consequences and policy intervention measures of the movement of labor within Ghana's administrative regions. The study concludes that the economic inequalities brought about by the uneven distribution of development projects in favor of urban areas causes depressed rural economic conditions, thus spurring rural to urban migration. Migration to the urban places of Ghana is therefore caused by individuals and families seeking better economic opportunities to improve the quality of their lives. Secondary determinants are varied, ranging from family obligations to the quest for adventure. The benefits of migration for the rural areas lie mainly in returned migrants’ contributions to the economic development of those areas. Migrants also contribute to the urban areas’ economic development, but their presence in large numbers has caused problems in the housing and in the delivery of social services. Rural development policies and land settlement schemes have been unsuccessful, due mainly to the lack of a comprehensive national development effort.