Analysis of Severity of Poverty and Social Cohesion among the Urban Poor Migrants in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Urban poor are dominated by migrants and are poorer than the rural poor in Ghana. The underlying reasons have not been researched. Therefore, this research analyzed the severity of poverty and social cohesion among the urban migrants who were poor in Ghana. The level, depth, and severity of poverty among the urban poor alongside social cohesion indicators was utilized in the analysis. Lack of social cohesion among the urban migrants is a contributory factor to severity of poverty among the urban poor. Purposive projects targeting migrant poor are a panacea to reducing severity of poverty among the urban poor in Ghana.

KEYWORDS:

• FGT methods
• Ghana
• migration
• severity of poverty
• social cohesion

Notes

1. Wratten (1995) states that the numbers of urban people in poverty are likely to be g rowing at a faster rate—and in parts of the world is already greater in absolute terms—than the numbers of poor rural people.

2. Ravallion, Gaurav, and Domique (2008) find that the poor have been urbanizing even more rapidly than the population as a whole. There are marked regional differences: Latin America has the most urbanized poverty problem, East Asia has the least; there has been a “ruralization” of poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; in marked contrast to other regions, Africa’s urbanization process has not been associated with falling overall poverty.

3. See Appendix A for details of the nature of the questionnaire.

4. See Appendix B on the thematic coding and summaries of some responses. Their exclusion in the discussion is to allow for the flow of ideas.