Rural-urban migration and household livelihoods in the Agona West Municipality, Ghana

Abstract

This thesis examines the interrelationships between migration and rural livelihoods in the Agona West Municipality. The central argument of the study is that remittances from migrants’ affect the livelihood of the households left behind in the Agona West Municipality. The study employed descriptive design drawn from both the positivist and interpretive research design using the interview schedules and FGDs respectively. Among the migrants, males constituted the majority (54.8%) in the three villages and that majority of them were within the age group 20-30. It was found also that, the main motive for migrating was economic reasons. The number of migrants who were unemployed before migration was 51.2% while only 29.8 % were found to be unemployed after migrating. Majority (85.1%) of the migrant’s households were remitted by their migrant’s household members. The study therefore recommended that governments, NGOs and other developmental agencies aimed at providing economic support for migrants should implement such projects at their places of origin and not at the destination because it is the economic deprivation at the origin which pushes them away