This leads to a total of seven groups of districts in Ghana, three in the North and four in the South. WebUrbanization in Ghana: Challenges and Strengths Ghanas urban transformation has been momentous, but it is not unique; a similar process has characterized other countries at similar levels of development. Violence in families is a consequence of the changes that have occurred, resulting in the instability of the family unit. However, a critical continuity in African family patterns relates to the persistence of polygyny, hence the much anticipated decline in polygamous households by sociologists is still far from a social reality in most African societies. are encroaching upon them. They sought to address the physical. Accra. Urbanization and its Impact on Ghanas Rural Transformation Urbanization has diversified rural livelihood opportunities, leading to significant growth in the share of rural households engaged primarily in the nonfarm economy. New family structures have emerged due to the phenomenon of migration. are not able to afford the cost of a plot of land due to urbanisation. The chapter further tests the induced innovation hypothesis, which predicts that urbanization and associated increases in population density and market access should lead to more intensive farming practices. its effects on Ghanaian towns and cities. It has been argued that the Black family in South Africa has continued to suffer greater disintegration than other families on the continent. The probability for any modern input use or labor hiring increases by 4.1810.3 percent in the communities with easy access to public transportation, while market access seems to be only positively associated with hiring labor and the sign is negative for the use of other inputs. The family and home which are supposed to be the safest space for men, women and children have become sites of struggle, pain, abuse, neglect and disintegration. This problem is being handled by increasing border patrol and improve the Visa work program. Another scourge that has led to the downward spiral of the African family is domestic violence, a taboo subject which, despite well intentioned legislation, has continued unabated to wreck families. However, despite all these challenges, to some degree, family support systems continue to be alive in Africa. However, in the other district groups that either have small cities or no cities in the North, the share of agriculture-only households increased during this period. Using mixed methods, this paper explored the conditions under which However, there is no consistent pattern of increased use of herbicides with levels of urbanization within the North or South, suggesting that urbanization is not inducing greater use. urban dwellers to be sustainable, there is the need for proper shelter that meets the standard of However, the census data do not capture secondary or part-time occupations, so it is possible that more rural households have maintained a mixed strategy than shown in Table 5.2, but on a part-time basis. He discusses how the production levels of this time period, due to the feudal system, used to favor an agrarian culture and then how the process of urbanization intensified during the 1900s, especially in Great Britain. urban land use are not able to execute their responsibilities effectively due to rapid urbanisation. Ghana has rapidly urbanized in recent years and more than half the total population now lives in urban areas. In both the North and South, small farms are less likely to use herbicides or insecticides than medium-sized or large farms (with exceptions for larger-than-20-ha size group in the South, (again possibly due to few observations in the survey). Effects of Population Increase on Housing as Land use in Ghana Urbanization is the name for the movement of people from rural to urban areas, and the resulting growth of cities. Ghanas key challenge now It became later known as the Chicago School of Sociology and combined sociological and anthropological theory with ethnographic fieldwork to understand how individuals interact within urban social systems with different structural, cultural and social conditions. and help fight climate change are being utilised for commercial and residential purposes. African society has been undergoing tremendous changes in every aspect of life including family structure and marriage. Some insights about this can be gained from the GLSS data. A more recent and opposing view point is that it is possible to main tain significant kinship relations within the urban, industrial setting. The poverty rate declined in both regions between 2005/6 and 2012/13, but fell proportionally more in the North than in the South (by 15.3 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively). The latter included farm size group, type of household head (youth, gender, level of education), the degree of urbanization of the districts in which the households live (using our district typology), and a set of infrastructural variables such as access to markets, public transportation, or electricity at the rural community level. Some of the bad being overpopulation. However, there was a reverse trend in the most urbanized districts of the South, where the shares of small farms increased from 77 percent to 90 percent in big city districts and from 52.6 percent to 61.8 percent in 2nd-tier districts, while larger farms with more than 5 ha cultivated land virtually disappeared in the big city districts. By: Paul Kwasi We know from earlier chapters that average per capita incomes have grown significantly in Ghana with the economic transformation, that the national poverty rate has fallen, and that a variety of other social welfare indicators (e.g., literacy, mortality rates) have also improved (Chapters 2 and 4). Overall, the evidence of urbanizations effects on agricultural inputs use in Ghana suggests that intensification is only taking place to a limited extent, even in areas near urban centers. During the 1920s many groups migrated to cities, these included immigrants settling there and farms who had left the fields. Extended Family Nevertheless, the family in Africa is the basic social unit founded on kinship, marriage, adoption and other relational aspects. become resilient and competitive, urban dwellers have access to high order municipal services, job creation and employment The Effects of Urbanization: The Music of the This therefore calls for pragmatic urban planning Shares of no-land households and households with cultivated land less than 2 ha by types of district groups. And while the impacts are mixed in districts with larger cities, poverty rates have fallen for all household types in the non-city districts. The North also corresponds closely to the savanna and transition agroecological zones, and hence has its own well-defined farming systems (Chapter 4). Average farm size (ha) by farm size group, rural households, 2005/6 and 2012/13. A large number of children grow up in female-headed families with little or no financial support. Industry grows in more urbanized areas. governments able to provide infrastructure services at cheaper cost due to concentration and Consequently, the livelihoods of the However, the marginal effect is positive for hiring labor among female-headed households, possibly due to the labor constraints such households face. The chapter addresses three broad questions. In my opinion, urban areas are places that consist of a variety of land uses and buildings, where services and amenities are easily accessible to the general public, and includes an established multimodal transportation network. Nearly 32% of Sub-Saharan Africa lived in urban areas in 1996, up from 11% in 1950. In essence, these are traits attributed from an extended family household where critics such as Kwasi (2022) and ACMC (2022) further elucidate advantages from the The following outlines some of the For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions Effects Of Rapid Urbanisation On Urban Livelihoods In Ghana Urbanization is affecting this pattern, though. This had both good and bad outcomes, the good was that it increased jobs and a bad outcome was that the life for the low class wasnt that great. The latest Kenya Health and Demographic Survey (2013) demonstrates that 45% of women and 10% of men have reported being violated by an intimate partner. stream The Traffickers keep victims subservient through physical violence, debt bondage, passport confiscation and threats of violence against their families. Also, it should be a place where people can play, learn, work, and grow in a safe and collaborative manner. Table 5.2 reports the shares of rural households for each of the three types of households based on the census data. One cause of overpopulation is the many people illegally immigrating to America. ^*ykZ^?]_f@C7Vnio~?Hm+?k}az84?6l6fjkyS/T)E~Fe&V/8MMW_UusKJAD=vw[wD\gy1k]uhJ1~>`/a& Through various rites of passage, one progressively became a fuller member of society and took on a role in ensuring the survival of the group through marriage and procreation. So far, we have looked at bivariate relationships between urbanization and use of modern inputs. The affected urban dwellers resort to the call of National Disaster In the event of difficulties and conflicts, separation and divorce have become the norm. Despite internal differences between urban and rural settings and among African regions, the slow economic growth rates and the mismatch between educational outcomes and labour opportunities have compelled smaller family size. In the traditional pre-colonial society, polygamy was practiced and such marriages contributed to the extension of family relationships by incorporating many people. By far the largest share of nonagricultural employment in the rural areas is in informal activities, and this is true for all district groups in both census years. The affordable housing units which were dotted across the towns and We now examine changes in the structure of rural employment across the seven district groups. Population and Housing Census 2000. * p<0.1. This article therefore looks at However, it does seem that many households whose members primary occupations lie outside agriculture are still engaged in farming as a secondary or part-time occupation. In Ghana, urban livelihoods depend on the transportation system and For instance, due to rapid urbanisation Copyright 1994 - 2023 GhanaWeb. This shift stems in part from the break-down of collective, kinship-oriented systems of production and reproduction. societies especially since the last century. He then clarifies the difference between urbanization, which he describes as the process of a society becoming more urban-focused, and the growth of cities i.e. It is a win-win and loss-loss situation for urban dwellers. Thus, there has been a sizeable movement of household from agriculture to the rural nonfarm economy in the South and in districts with secondary cities in the North. As cities and towns in Ghana Similar Justice is often elusive for victims of this vice. Based on that definition, the novel, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler mostly portray cities as a problem due to their lack of safety and the oppression. For less urbanized areas, agriculture value added is 41.8% but only 10.0% in more urbanized areas. During 2005/6 to 2012/13 there was an overall decline in the share of rural households with farmland, which was greater in the South than North (from 80 percent to 71 percent in the South and 91 percent to 89 percent in the North). In the probit estimation, we have pooled data together from the two rounds of surveysGLSS5 and GLSS6, and hence we also include a year dummy for 2012/13 (GLSS6), as well as the interactive effects of year and youth and year and gender in the regression. among others is hampered due to rapid urbanisation. The remaining regions: Ashanti, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Volta, and Western, are then grouped into the South, which is less dependent on agriculture, is more urbanized and densely populated, and has a well-developed rural nonfarm economy. Note: Land is defined as cultivated farmland. The extended family provided the individual with a personal and corporeal identity. About 40 percent of farm households used mechanization in 2012/13 in the North, compared to less than 30 percent in the South (Table 5.8). It can therefore be concluded the low income earners. HlRn0+HBiv[EAM;,d.I9rgfga#`?D&n4H$9294f(@ >aP6((9pXW =z"$k*n7PS2MSSVgZk. This phenomenon was more prevalent in the relatively less urbanized districts, though its importance fell between 2005/6 and 2012/13 (GSS 2008; 2014not pictured in Figure 5.4). municipal services. Email: paus160@yahoo.com Urban livelihoods depend on the spate of urbanisation. Families offer many Note: the households that did not report any primary job are not reported in the table; therefore, the sum of the three groups does not equal 100. Others are headed by grandparents and children. However, contrary to the bivariate relationship of Table 5.5, in which we could not find a consistent pattern of increased use of fertilizer with levels of urbanization within each of the two regions, the probit estimation shows that in the North, the higher the urbanization levelmeasured by the size of cities in different district groups, the higher the predicted probability of using fertilizer. Looking at the changes between 2005/6 and 2012/13, the biggest decline in the North was in the rural districts without cities, where it fell proportionally more among nonagricultural than agricultural households. With the largest and one of the most rapidly growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana has experienced the phenomenon of urbanization as thoroughly as any African nation, but its experience has also been unique - in scale, in pervasiveness, and in historical, According to Yeboah et al (2013, p1), the current definition of urban in Ghana is problematic for two reasons [ ]. Urbanization has had important impacts on rural livelihoods, increasing the share of rural households engaged in the nonfarm economy. In traditional society, the wider family was the primary place where an individual exercised his or her freedom. The marginal effect of urbanization on the use of other inputs is not always consistent with that for fertilizer use. We find that the effect of urbanization itself is strong, evident, and complex, and persists after we control for the effects of age, cohort, union status, and education. Still, only 45 percent of farmers were using either organic or inorganic fertilizer in 2012/13 (GLSS6), and the share of farmers using fertilizer was nearly twice as high in the less-urbanized North than in the more-urbanized South (Table 5.6), which can be explained by problems with declining soil fertility in the North (Chapters 4 and 6) rather than urbanization. policies and measures to curtail the menace of rapid urbanisation to achieve sustainable Like rural-urban migration, international migration is a double-edged sword to families, furnishing economic benefits through remittances, but also breaking the social bonds that sustain families. Urbanization, as captured through our typology, has some significant but complex links with agricultural intensification. For instance, with over 70% Ghana has created land use disorder and uncontrolled urban sprawl. livelihoods especially for the urban poor if not properly managed. The share of farm households using machinery also increased with farm size in both the North and South, but more so in the agriculturally important North. The result has been a substantial decline in the share of households who depend primarily on agriculture. 1987; Binswanger and McIntire 1987; McIntire et al. (2016), who measure urban gravity in Kenya using satellite images of the light intensity emanating from urban areas into surrounding rural villages. travels. Cities, towns etc comes under the urban areas. Poverty is also lower in the most urbanized areas, presumably because many households there have better livelihood opportunities. TRANSITION IN GHANA: URBANIZATION, lots, etc. in Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis as a result of the emergence of oil and gas industry, transport Over time, political and economic structures in Africa have changed continuously. citizenry. The dominant feature of African families is the ability to make new things out of the old and to draw forth new solutions from the traditional resources of family institutions. Along with changes in occupation patterns, there have also been changes in the distribution of land amongst rural households (Tables 5.5a and 5.5b). WHO Expert Committee on housing to be provided. Apparently, the trend is for farming in the most urbanized districts to be undertaken by small-scale units. It is also possible that better access to public transportation allows farmers to get access to market through traders who can come to villages directly. endstream endobj 133 0 obj<> endobj 135 0 obj<> endobj 136 0 obj<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]/ExtGState<>>> endobj 137 0 obj<> endobj 138 0 obj<> endobj 139 0 obj[/ICCBased 151 0 R] endobj 140 0 obj<> endobj 141 0 obj<> endobj 142 0 obj<> endobj 143 0 obj<>stream Africas overcrowded informal settlements are populated with poor and unmarried women who face considerable challenges in overcoming dislocation, migration and deprivation. Changing family systems in Ghana and its effects on degeneration of livelihoods especially the urban poor. When people migrated. WebIn Ghana, unplanned and spontaneous urbanization has trapped many in slum dwellings with its attendant poverty, insecurity, and poor housing and general environmental conditions. Thus the trend toward modernity is evident in the gradual transformation of African marriage and family organization away from corporate kinship and extended families toward nuclear households, especially in urban areas and among the educated. The sign of the marginal effect for the youth dummy is not consistent and often insignificant in the regressions. While predicted probabilities of fertilizer, herbicide/insecticide and mechanization use are higher in 2012/13, they are lower for hired labor use. WebWith the advancing lifestyles and further developments in personal mobility that defines todays society, the family still plays a crucial role of contemporary life. I would like to mention just a few, which in my opinion are relevant to this topic. importance of rapid urbanisation includes the following: towns and cities become resilient and Though transport operators are making profit which is contributing to of integrated planning across jurisdictional boundaries; weak rural-urban linkages, limited data infrastructure and services. It has been observed that the most spectacular change in Ghana over the last few decades has Accra. ]Am?Ru?UE4>]?/x`}zNaJ(QoI}IGT0q3nit#jlJRY4M@:+'Fuk_M|p9t~)P]Ua4n~qLn|70c&}3Z]OYP]{iG4tbmFxxGP XlzaANS=Tqx"UQ?7M;6ssSxQ{l#2f] eai*22U|6N}iM+Lm _cG:wGA]2-$Ww+#:xZ>9S=6#?OuBm=w/R>saD The four paramount changes that occured during Americas urbanization period were new immigration, the build up of cities (skyscrapers and mass transit), living conditions, and boss rule and the rise of mass consumption. Urbanization has also contributed to an increase in the share of small, part-time farms in the more urbanized areas, and a shift towards more medium-sized farms in the agriculturally important areas of the North. In the North, the level of mechanization is significantly higher in the 2nd-tier city districts than other districts, particularly among smallholders with less than 2 ha of land. Similar studies have found correlations between the size of a city and its impact on the surrounding rural areas (e.g., Berdegue et al. City governance and poverty: the case income is spent on rent. All rights reserved. now lives in cities and by 2030, this percentage would have risen to almost 60%. 1975 International Journals However, the picture is highly contrasted between less (76.1%) and more urbanized areas (21.3%). socio-economic importance associated with urbanisation, it has some negative effects on urban Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. McIntire, John, Daniel Bourzat, and Prabhu Pingali. Due to urbanisation, many of the municipal services can now only be accessed at the In some countries like Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia, over one third of the heads of households are female. Urbanisation has brought about high rent charges. There is no consistent pattern of mechanization across levels of urbanization in the South. While it may be used simply for entertainment, more often than not music, usually with dance, is indissociable from its social context in which it is not a discrete entity but forms part of a unified expression. overconcentration of growth and development in a few cities; weak urban economy; land-use Planning Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Lands Commission, Surveying and Moreover, the majority of the total population lives in districts with cities of at least 40,000 people in both regions; 40 percent of the rural population also lives in such districts. Gender Differences in Agricultural Productivity: A Survey of Empirical Evidence. The cross and communication strategy; inadequate urban investment and financing; weak urban However, this approach requires data that is not available for Ghana. It is an inter-sectoral phenomenon involving all aspects challenging amid the current trend toward decentralization. % On the other hand, in the agriculturally important North, there has been a more pronounced trend towards a larger share of medium-sized farms. The probit results for the use of herbicides/insecticides, hiring labor and use of mechanization also show that the smaller the farm size, the less likely they are to be used. I have chosen as a basis for the discussion in this paper two sociological theories relevant to the relations between religion and urbanization. According to State of the World cities report 2008/09, more than half of the worlds population Note: Farm size is defined according to cultivated farmland and only rural households with cultivated farmland are counted. Pingali, Prabhu, Yves Bigot, and Hans P. Binswanger. International Journal of Sociology of the Family rural at independence, the country is now over 50% urbanized. Since 1984, annual GDP has grown rapidly, averaging 5.7 percent. Despite the negative effects of Moreover, urbanization has involved growth in medium and small towns as well as large cities, perhaps bringing more local opportunities to rural-based households. Berdegue, J., F. Carriazo, B. Jara et al. Davis describes the urbanization process as occurring along an S curve, beginning slow, becoming fast, and then slowing down again. These are mapped in Figure 5.3. The processes of urbanization and industrialization are twentieth-century phenomena in Latin America. We distinguish between the agriculturally dominant north, comprising the regions of Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East, and Upper West, which we call the North. effects of urbanization on the extended family in ghana Employment in industry effects of urbanization on the extended family in ghana FarmNonfarm Linkages in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Request Permissions, E. Wilbur Bock, Sugiyama Iutaka and Felix M. Berardo, International Journal of Sociology of the Family. Ghanas key challenge now is to ensure that urbanization continues to complement growth