Migration and poverty reduction: evidence from the Ghana Living Standards Survey

Abstract

This paper uses Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) data to examine welfare outcomes of migrant households in the 1990s. We provide descriptive evidence on migrants and regression analysis of welfare outcomes (household consumption expenditure, poverty incidence and primary school attendance rates).

The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 motivates the analysis by providing a brief survey of the economic literature on migration. Section 3 presents descriptive evidence on migrants residing in Ghana in terms of number, reason for moving, spatial distribution, demographic characteristics, educational qualifications attained and main employment activity of the household. In section 4 we use cross-tabulations and regression analysis to analyse the performance of migrant and non-migrant households in relation to the aforementioned indicators. Section 5 concludes.

Citation

Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, UK. Sussex Migration Working Paper no. 10, 54 pp.

Migration and poverty reduction: evidence from the Ghana Living Standards Survey

Published 1 January 2003