2.6 Poverty in Ghana
There has been an uneven distribution of poverty incidence and poverty gap in Ghana over the past decades. A proportion of the population of Ghana enjoys fair outcome of the national development whiles others lumber in poverty. In fact, poverty level would have reduced in Ghana if there is a decreasing inequality. The disparities in the distri-bution of welfare between the rural poor and the urban population in Ghana may be attributed to several factors.
According to a survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) (2014) on the poverty profile in Ghana between the years 2005 and 2013 the Ghana Living Standard Survey reveals, that one-third of the population of Ghana are poor and one-tenth are extremely poor. To assess this fact, GSS used conditions such as
…show more content…
This implies that the poverty incident is higher among the poor inhabitants than that of the urban settings. In a nutshell, poverty in Ghana is driven by inequality. (This can be seen at appendix 4, figure 1).
The GLSS6 (2013) relates the poverty rate in Ghana to the various economic activities in which individual household heads are indulged, for example, educational level of the head of the family, sex of the family head, etc. Households headed by female, uneducated and self-employed individuals are worse off in terms of poverty.
According to the Ghana Poverty Mapping report (2015), the three northern regions of Ghana are the poorest in Ghana with the highest concentration of poor people in the north-western part of the country. They have experienced tremendous improvements over the past years due to several aid initiatives introduced by the government, NGOs and other international agencies to the area. (The National Poverty map can be seen at appendix 4, figure
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
There are many things that cause poverty in Africa. The main reason is that the rich in Africa hog all the money and resources causing a country where there are rich people and poor people, there is ...
...onditions in an inner-city or a rural community in the United States” (8). Most of the countries in Africa there are well over 50% of people below their poverty line. For an example, Lusted states, “In developing regions, extreme poverty is usually defined as earning less than $1.25 a day. In the United States, extreme poverty means earning less than half of the official poverty line” (10). But Africa isn’t the only country struggling with poor people. Poverty and Homelessness by Merino writes, “...3.7 percent in Denmark, 5 percent in Finland, 5.5 percent in Norway, 6.9 in Slovenia, 7 percent in Sweden, 7.2 percent [in] Hungary, 8.3 percent in Germany, 8.8 percent in the Czech Republic, 9.3 percent in France, 9.4 percent in Switzerland” (32). Poverty is a struggle all around the world and thousands of people die each day due to the lack of basic necessities to live.
Poverty is “the inability to acquire enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter” (Gosselin,2009). This social disadvantage limits one’s ability to receive a quality education and it is a constant problem throughout the world accompanied with“deleterious impacts on almost all aspects of family life and outcomes for children”(Ravallion,1992). Poverty is a main factor that affects normal human growth and development in a variety of ways, primarily impacting children’s early development, social behaviour, health, and self worth.
Over one billion people are living in poverty, lacking safe water, housing, food, and the ability to read. There is a high concentration of communities in poverty in Africa particularly Central Africa. States that are considered in Central Africa are the following: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Republic of Africa, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Congo. The majority of these Central African states’ economies are dependent on agriculture. As a result of this dependency, natural disasters, droughts and wars can displace subsistence farmers from their land, resulting in poverty becoming even more prevalent and harder to come back from.
In conclusion, one has to say that poverty is something an undeveloped country could fall into easily, however would have a difficult time coming out of. The main cause of Ethiopia’s poverty is it’s extractive political and economical institutions. If there is a chance for Ethiopia to become a more developed country with less poverty, then it has to find realistic and efficient solutions for the problems, and changes the system of the institutions to create a working incentive to the people. However if Ethiopia continues walking down the road of improvement, it will experience great results in it’s future and might actually become a MEDC (more economically developed country) some day.
19,261 [0.49$/day] and international poverty line NRs. 74842.52 [1.9 $/day] are used to evaluate the level of poverty in the study area. Total household income is converted to average per capita income by multiplying the population share of a household adult equivalent unit (a.e.u.). As national standard, 7.5 % of the sampled population lives in extreme poverty (α = 0; Table 8). This is surprisingly lower than the national figure of 25.16 % (CBS, 2011). And it is also quite lower with the study done by Chhetri et al., (2015) giving the result of 25.1 % sampled population lives in extreme poverty. This is because our study site Jamune VDC is developed than Simjung and Ghyachok VDC of Ghorkha district. The depth of extreme poverty (α = 1) is 2.17 %, while the severity (α = 2) is 0.76 %. Excluding CF income from the total household income, the prevalence of extreme poverty rises to 28.75 %, a relative increase of 283.33 %. That means 21.25% of sampled household are the direct beneficiary with CF to stay above the poverty line. This type of changes was seen in the similar study by Chhetri et al., (2015), with the exclusion of environmental income the prevalence of extreme poverty rises from 39.9% to 59%. With increase in poverty gap (α = 1) and poverty severity (α = 2) indices would increase even more, by 441.47% and 902.63 %, respectively. Further, 13.33 % medium households and 6.67 % poor households lives in extreme poverty (α = 0), quite different
In today 's society, there is 1 in 7 people living in poverty which is costing Canadian citizens’ money as they are paying for taxes. There are many standpoints in which people examine the ways poverty affect society such as Marx’s conflict theory. Marx’s conflict theory goes over how social stratification being inevitable and how there is a class consciousness within people in the working class. Another way that poverty is scrutinized is by feminization. Feminization is the theory that will be explored throughout this essay. Poverty will be analyzed in this essay to determine the significance of poverty on the society and the implications that are produced.
Poverty is an outcome of the mode of production and plays a large role in relation to production. Therefore, according to Marx, it is a contributor to the economic base. People who are living at poverty level struggles to meet the living necessities due to capitalist exchange values on productions. What I mean by this that people in poverty cannot afford to buy enough food, clothes, and most importantly a safe home for their kids. This is due to the fact that most people living in poverty are being paid minimum wages that does not meet the exchange values of commodities. People in poverty are the laborers in the capitalist world, they a commodity as well. Using Marx’s theory, people in poverty are the proletariats since they are the actual
Guinea is one of the poorest in the world. It ranks 178th out of 187 countries classifies by UNDP, despite its great mineral wealth. About twenty percent live in poverty; food security and malnutrition is among children, widespread. Forty percent of Guinea children below the age of give years of age are malnourished. Development "depends on giving priority to investment in social services such as health and education and the strengthen pf agricultural sector to ensure food security" says United Nations Special Rapporteur, Ms. Magalena Sepulveda stressed; the situation has caused serious consequences. There is rising food insecurity and poverty fueled social tensions in the country from 2006 to 2008. There is still a huge discrepancy between the availability of basic services such as health care, education, and safe drinking water. The number of rural poor (2010 appx.) is four million headcount ratio at poverty line (percent of population) (2007) is sixty three. The national poverty line (2007) is fifty three. Education is being affected by the poverty in the country; school enrollment, primary in 2010 was ninety four percent now it is and the literacy rate, adult total (percent of people ages fifteen and above in 2009) was forty. Health is also affected; there are very little physicians in Guinea to help the people. Corruption also causes poverty in the country. The many problems that encounter Guinea have leaded it to become an underdeveloped nation, even though it has an abundance of natural resources.
"Ghana." The U.S. Government's Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative. Feed the Future, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. .
African nations regularly fall to the bottom of any list measuring economic activity, such as per capita income or per capita GDP, despite a wealth of natural resources. The bottom 25 spots of the United Nations (UN) quality of life index are regularly filled by African nations. In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa. In many nations, the per capita income is often less than $200 U.S. per year, with the vast majority of the population living on much less. In addition, Africa's share of income has been consistently dropping over the past century by any measure. In 1820, the average European worker earned about three times what the average African did. Now, the average European earns twenty times what the average African does. Although per capita incomes in Africa have also been steadily growing, and poverty falling, measures are still far better in other parts of the world, such as Latin America, which suffers from many of the same disadvantages that Africa has.
Growth in Africa is not enough for its people to grow, which is leading to poverty and hunger in Africa. Today Africa is one of the leading countries having poverty and economic problems. One half of the Africans live below the poverty line which leads to low human development in Africa. The main cause of poverty in Africa is a problem in its economic system and environmental factors. Because of poverty people of Africa remain hungry as they don’t have enough money to buy their food and their basic needs. Some of the African countries have less poverty rate than others due to good government and economic system in those countries. Most of the African is facing challenges to survive and keep their family healthy.
Beneria and Sen say, " male migration to urban areas in search of work have forced women in Ghana to take up additional tasks in subsistence agricultural production, lengthening and intensifying their work days" (288). This means that while men moved away from the home women were left to additionally, take over male positions in the field, and continue their work in agriculture, and at home. This is a concept Kabeer refers to a 'time poverty ' (194), where the amount of work one has significantly outweighs the amount of time they have to complete said work. Moreover, many women did not, or were not allowed to move with their husband 's to the urban centers due to the social connotations applied with being an urban woman (Boserup Chapter 9. 145). This revisits a previous point concerning how women 's social status, and role, plays into their freedoms and restraints in the economic center. If they are meant to be in the home, than being in the city not only physically places them outside of their designated space, but also culturally paints them as 'bad women ' who are defying their roles. The influence of urbanization as the epicenter of economic gains and growth is the final way the shift towards economic growth, as a form of development, damaged
"Causes and Effects of Poverty." Cliffs Notes. Cliffs Notes, n.d. Web. 27 Nov 2013. .