MIGRATION: COMMUNITY CONSEQUENCES AND INDIVIDUAL MIGRANT EXPERIENCES IN AGBOGBLOSHIE

ABSTRACT
Development disparities between the three northern regions of Ghana and their southern counterparts remain an issue of grave concern since independence. The colonial administration promoted the northern sector as a labour basket for the rich southern cocoa and timber industry and mineral resources. Undoubtedly, this situation resulted in seasonal and sometimes permanent migration of young people from the three northern regions to the southern sector. Though the north-south migration in the country has received much scholarly attention with respect to the causes and patterns of these movements, it is            yet to be critically examined in terms      of its effects on  the socio- economic well-being of migrants and their dependants. Thus, the thesis investigates how migration affects migrants‟ well-being.
The main objective of the study is to determine the effects of migration on the well-being of migrants and their dependants in Agbogbloshie. The specific objectives are to examine the effects of migration on the income, education, housing and employment conditions of migrants; to determine the effects of migrants‟ absence on their households in their areas of origin, to gain insight into the migration decision making process of these young migrants and to explore the experiences of migrants in terms of the challenges and successes from migrants perspective.
A mixed research design involving both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis was used in finding answers to the research questions. The study found that the determinants of well-being; income, education, employment, health, and housing have improved for migrants after migration. The survey results revealed that migrants lived in congested and unhygienic environments, whilst the work they engaged in posed a lot of risks such as carrying very heavy loads and maneuvering between vehicles. On the consequences of migration on source communities, the study found that migration had a mixed effect on Yendi Municipality. Remittances were cited as the main positive effect on migrants‟ households since it served as a source of additional income that cushioned relatives in the lean season (June-July). Some of the negative effects included the return of migrants with diseases and loss of moral values on the part of the returned migrants.

The study recommends that the development gap between the northern and the southern part of the country be bridged so as to limit migration.


CHAPTER ONE 
1.0 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 
1.1 Overview of migration
Migration is a topic that every individual has an opinion about whether a politician, artisan or the newspaper vendor on the street, partly because the issues of migration are in the news every day. People are also interested in migration issues because they affect all aspects of lives ranging from socio-economic, cultural to political. The consequences of migration could be direct or indirect on everybody and both sending and recipient communities are affected by this in diverse ways. This makes the analysis of migration very relevant and complex as well (Hagen-Zanker, 2010).

Migration is defined broadly as a permanent or temporary change of residence irrespective of the distance of the move or the voluntary or involuntary nature of the act across administrative or political boarder (International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2005). According to Malmberg (1997), migration is a dynamic concept and should be defined within the context of distance and time. In the case of international migration, one has to cross a state‟s border. The measurement of international migration as opposed to other forms of mobility like tourism is usually pegged at one year in the recipient country (Malmberg, 1997; Cwerner, 2001; King, 2013). In the case of temporal migration, the migrants eventually return to their countries of origin, whilst permanent migrants may only pay visits to their home countries. In a given country, a number of migration typologies may exist: urban-urban migration, rural-urban migration, rural-rural migration, urban-rural migration and these could be seasonal, temporal or permanent.

Migration therefore involves a temporal or permanent change of residence from one geographical location to another. Flowing from the above, migration can be categorized

into the following types: internal versus external migration; voluntary versus involuntary migration and permanent versus temporal migration (King, 2013). In this study, migration is used to mean those movements which occur in a given country usually from the rural areas to the urban centers. Specifically, the movement of people from the three northern regions in Ghana to Agbogbloshie is the focus of this study. These movements could be permanent or temporal, voluntary or involuntary. Who then is a migrant in Agbogbloshie? This study adopts the definition offered by Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). According to GSS (2012), an internal migrant refers to an individual who leaves his or her place of residence in a geographical location to another place beyond six months.

Ever since the seminal work of Ravenstein (Grigg, 1977), scholars from the disciplines of Economics, Geography, Demography, Anthropology, Sociology and recently Development Economics have explored various aspects of migration. Many have addressed the issue in relation to the rationale for migrating (Sjaastad, 1962; Todaro, 1969; Lucas and Stark, 1985), migration patterns (Lee, 1966), the determinants of migration (Caldwell, 1968) and still others have looked at the welfare impacts of these population movements (Falaris, 1987; Litchfield and Waddington, 2003; Boakye-Yiadom, 2008). Also, the role of migrant remittances in poverty reduction and economic development has been extensively explored (Deshingkar and Grimm, 2005; Rosenzweig, 2005; Skeldon, 2008). It is not surprising that Simmons, Diaz-Briquets and Laquian wrote four decades ago that:

The movement of people in developing countries has been intensively studied, and in recent years the results of these studies have been thoroughly reviewed. One needs good justification for preparing yet another review... (Simmons et al, 1977: p5)

The abundance of research in the field of migration has mainly focused on mobility between countries usually the movement of people from developing countries to developed countries. This is due to the perceived importance of the issue by richer countries with significant attention on international remittances sent by migrants to developing countries (Kapur, 2003; Ratha, 2003; Skeldon, 2008). In 2006, a report by the United Nations (UN) on International Migration and Development aptly captured the growing interest in migration and its role in economic development in the following words:

The potential for migrants to help transform their native countries has captured the imaginations of national and local authorities, international institutions and the private sector. There is an emerging consensus that countries can co-operate to create triple wins for migration, for their countries of origin and for the societies that receive them (UN, 2006, p6).

In the ensuing discussion, I explore the general question of why people migrate from a theoretical point of view.

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Item Type: Ghanaian Topic  |  Size: 153 pages  |  Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word  |  Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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