Poverty In Ghana Research Articles

Poverty in Ghana from an Assets-based Perspective: An Application of Probit Technique*

: This paper extends the existing literature on poverty in developing economies by examining the effects of human capital, financial capital and physical assets on the incidence of poverty in both urban and rural Ghana. The following is found: low stocks of assets appear to be a more prevalent problem associated with poverty; the returns to human capital are positive and rise with higher educational attainment, irrespective of gender; the correlation between income distribution and incidence of poverty is positive; and ownership of human, physical and financial assets reduces the probability of being poor. Against the backdrop of growth-oriented policies, the paper calls for investments in schooling, provision of institutional credit and an enabling environment for labour market activities as strategies for the reduction of poverty.

Migrants and Housing Investments: Theory and Evidence from Nigeria

The dominance of housing may reflect limitations in the menu of investment choices available to migrants in the country of origin. In many developing countries individuals face relatively few savings opportunities where productive assets (such as land farm assets) are associated with high risks and/or low rates of return. Housing investments offer unique advantages in that they are durable highly visible and associated with low risk and monitoring requirements. However there are some important drawbacks associated with housing investments. In particular where resale and rental markets for housing are not well developed migrants housing assets may be relatively illiquid and irreversible. In the next section I provide some background on general patterns of investment behavior among migrants. Here the evidence on housing investments is discussed for a rich set of migrant sending and receiving countries. In Section III I develop the conceptual framework for understanding migrants housing investment decisions. Section IV provides a description of the data sources. Section V outlines the empirical strategy. In Section VI I discuss the empirical findings. Section VII presents conclusions. (excerpt)

Agricultural Productivity Growth, Rural Economic Diversity, and Economic Reforms: India, 1970–2000

A salient theme in D. Gale Johnson’s work is the importance of agricultural development for general prosperity and for economic diversification (e.g., Johnson 2000). Johnson has also noted that most of the world’s poor are engaged in farming, so that a key focus of development policy is to raise the incomes of farmers. From a global perspective, increasing the productivity of agriculture, given the fixity of land, is necessary for both poverty reduction and the development of the nonagricultural sector. At the level of the world, agricultural productivity gains, poverty reduction, and the growth of the nonfarm sector are complements. However, the question remains whether these observations imply that every poor country should focus its public resources on agricultural development in order to raise the incomes of people now engaged in farming and whether such a policy is necessary for obtaining economic diversity. In this article, we use the experience of India over the past 30 years to address the issue of whether agricultural technical change actually leads to economic diversification and income growth within the rural sector in the context of an open-economy country in which there are cross-area trade and capital flows. We focus in particular on the rural sector because this is the sector in which linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors are thought to be the strongest. We exploit the fact that India has maintained a policy of openness with respect to agricultural technology over this period, permitting and actively supporting agricultural development, and has moved to a reformed regime in which goods are traded and capital is more mobile in the 1990s. Evidence on the relationship between agricultural growth and nonfarm

Some correlates of childhood poverty in Ghana

This paper examines the effects of poverty on children's nutritional status, health, and educational attainment in Ghana. Toward that end, it addresses issues bearing on the definition, measurement, and characteristics of poverty. Poverty limits the ability of families to obtain sufficient food and contributes to high levels of malnutrition with long-term adverse effects. Further, poverty is linked to the health status of children through the inability of families to secure adequate health services and engage in health promoting behaviors. Finally, poverty is related to children's educational attainment and future employment in that it affects decisions about school and child labor. Some governmental policy implications are addressed.

A Poverty Profile for Ghana, 1987–1988

The object of this paper is to establish a baseline poverty profile for Ghana using the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The profile does speak, in general terms, to current policy concerns in Ghana. It provides support for an improvement in the rural-urban terms of trade, in favor of the former. Poverty in Ghana is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon. Thus, a policy of raising the producer prices of key agricultural commodities is unlikely to be in conflict with the objective of poverty alleviation. However, the profiles developed in this paper allow a more detailed differentiation to be made between different crops. On the expenditure side, the poverty profiles can also speak to policy debates. They provide an empirical framework for assessing the poverty impact of various policy options on, for example, gasoline pricing. However, they do not provide the whole answer. To do that would require a full analysis that poverty profiles by their very nature cannot capture. Finally, the profiles highlight achievements on the basic needs front. Although not providing an analysis of policy options, these profiles do provide a base-line and an input into more detailed sectoral or sub-sectoral analysis of interventions.

Factors affecting food poverty in Ghana

Household production theory is applied to the Ghana Household Budget Survey data to: (1) identify the main determinants of food poverty: and (2) determine the net contribution of children to household food availability. Results suggest income, fertility and maturity indices, age, sex, and education significantly explain household calorie gaps. Hypothesis test results (at one per cent and five per cent) suggest the contribution of children to household food availability is less than their caloric intake. Estimated non‐linear equations permit the prediction and monitoring of the calorie gap for a given household or set of households with given household income and demographic features in a given location.

Gender and Poverty in Ghana: A Descriptive Analysis of Selected Outcomes and Processes

Summary The paper presents some expenditure-based and basic needs poverty indicators for Ghana, disaggregated by gender. The similarity of living standards as measured across a number of indicators and gender groupings may seem surprising, but the paper suggests that the real gender-differentiation most visibly manifests itself in the inability of women to raise living standards due to poorer educational enrolment and attainment and heavier time burdens. In addition to the distributional concerns, this gender-differentiation has important efficiency implications. Ghana is currently undergoing a process of economic adjustment, and if women are located in sectors that will have to contract as a consequence, successful adjustment will require female resource mobility and access to new resources. If there is gender-differentiation in resource mobility and access, it will act as a brake on adjustment in addition to tightening the ratchet through role-formation. ResumeLe genre et la pauvrete au Ghana: une analyse descriptive de divers processus et des deroulements qu'ils envisageaient Cet article presente plusieurs indicateurs de pauvrete au Ghana fondes sur les depenses et sur les besoins essentiels, et les detaille par genre. Si la similarite des niveaux de vie tels que mesures en se servant d'une gamme d'indicateurs et de regroupements de genre semble surprenante, il est par contre suggere dans l'article que la differentiation effective des genres se manifeste le plus visiblement dans l'incapacite des femmes d'ameliorer les niveaux de vie, et que cette incapacite serait due aux plus faibles niveaux d'inscription et de performance dans l'enseignement, d'une part, et a leurs engagements temporels plus onereux de l'autre. En plus des questions distributionnelles, cette differentiation des genres presente d'importantes implications en termes de l'efficience. Le Ghana subit actuellement un processus d'ajustement economique et si les femmes se retrouvent dans des secteurs qui devront en consequence se retrecir, le succes de ces ajustements dependra sur la mobilite de l'effectif feminin et sur l'acces a des ressources nouvelles. S'il se produit une differentiation des genres au niveau de la mobilite et de l'acces aux ressources, cette differentiation freinera l'ajustement et resserrera egalement le rochet en delimitant des roles. ResumenGenero y Pobreza en Ghana: Analisis Descriptivo de Algunos Resultados y Procesos Este trabajo presenta una serie de indicadores de pobreza basados en costes y necesidades basicas para Ghana, desagregados por genero. La similitud entre standards de vida, medidos con un numero de indicadores, y agrupaciones por genero puede, en un principio, parecer sorprendente, pero el autor sugiere que la disticion mas aguda entre generos se manifiesta en la incapacidad de la mujer en incrementar standards de vida, debido al bajo nivel de escolaridad y al menor tiempo disponible. Ademas de implicaciones en la distribucion, esta diferenciacion por genero tiene importantes implicaciones en la eficacia del proceso de produccion. Ghana esta en la actualidad atravesando por un proceso de ajuste economico y, si la mujer se encuentra en los sectores mas afectados, politicas de ajuste satisfactorias requeriran una mayor mobilidad de la mujer asi como acceso a nuevos recursos. La existencia de discriminacion por genero en la mobilidad de recursos y a su acceso, frenaria el proceso de ajuste.

On the Interaction between the Quantity and Quality of Children

Students of human fertility have been aware for a long time that there may be some special relation between the number (quantity) of children ever born to a family and the "quality" of their children as perceived by others if not by the parents. One need only cite the negative correlation between quantity and quality of children per family so often observed in both cross-section and time-series data. One of us (Becker 1960) more than a decade ago stressed the importance for understanding fertility (quantity) of the interaction between quantity and quality, and we are pleased to note that this interaction is emphasized in most of the papers in this Supplement, especially those by De Tray and Willis. Some economists have argued that the negative relation between quantity and quality often observed is a consequence of a low substitution elasticity in a family's utility function between parents' consumption or level of living and that of their children (see, e.g., Duesenberry 1960; Willis 1969). The approach followed by De Tray in this volume is different, but it makes equally special assumptions about the substitution between quantity and quality in the utility function and in household production.