Job Opportunities in the Coastal regions of Ghana( the case of Western region of Ghana)

B.Sc. Carruthers Kofi Kodzitsey

Master's thesis

Abstract:

AbstractMigration has existed over centuries and has been served as an essential part of people expanding their freedom, economics status and opportunities in life. Ghana has not been an exception of it. The study aims at identifying the main drivers of ruralurban migration (push and pull factors), the chances of migrants to obtain jobs and to improve their welfare and the welfare of their families as well as at the strategies their adopted to survive in the urban conditions. Poor rural north and promising southern urban areas (particularly the newly booming western part) of Ghana are of special interest of the research. The thesis build on secondary data only, it reviews published research in scientific journals, working papers and research reports on migration in Ghana and in few cases also on Africa in general. Out of 55 gathered empirical studies, 16 were selected for further detailed investigation. The researcher showed that nonexistence of technical and inadequate social infrastructure, unemployment, and lack of education opportunities in general rural poverty are the principal push factors of ruralurban (NorthSouth) migration in the Ghana. The research shows that there is no dominance of papers of one school over the others. Quite intensive effort of authors can be observed to demonstrate beside negative impacts of migration on the increase of urban poverty also the fact that moving to urban centres is migrants way how to escape from rural poverty. The pluralist literature puts quite an emphasis on survival strategies which demonstrate migrants capacity for collective action (collective savings, collective health care) and slum entrepreneurship. Gender is an important subject in most of the investigated studies; the papers confirm that there are gender differences in migration and the welfare effects. Lot of papers emphasize the benefit of women economic independence regardless how miserable their living conditions are. We can see lasting separation between author adopting econometric analysis in the research and authors relying on qualitative approaches. Despite broadening the perspective of the both groups, still the former incline to stick with the neoclassical paradigm, while the other is reluctant to support their pluralistic position by a rigorous quantitative method.

Keywords

remittances, household income, economic strategies, migrants' jobs, internal migration, livelihood strategies

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 27. 4. 2017

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Dr. RNDr. Tomáš Ratinger

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / International Development and Agricultural Economics