# **1. Introduction**

Migration is very common in Ghana, with at least one migrant in more than 43 percent of all households in 2005/06. Studies of migration in Ghana—exploring its patterns, determinants, and impacts on welfare and poverty—date back to the 1960s. Early contributions by Beals et al (1976) and Caldwell (1968), relying on census and survey data, respectively, found a negative effect of origin locality’s income on ruralurban migration (Beals et al, 1976), but a positive effect of a household’s own income on the probability to migrate (Caldwell, 1968). Other important determinants of the likelihood to migrate noted by Caldwell (1968) include presence of friends or relatives in the destination locality, i.e., migration networks (also observed by Tutu, 1995), gender, with males more likely to migrate than females, age, with younger persons more likely to migrate (also confirmed by Tutu, 1995), and household size, with larger households with producing a greater number of migrants. The findings regarding the relationship between education and the probability to migrate have been conflicting, with Beals et al (1976) estimating a negative relationship while Caldwell (1968) reported a positive association. Furthermore, drawing on the 1991 Migration Research Study, Gbortsu (1995) reports that the share of migrants with formal education exceeds the share of non-migrants only for tertiary degrees and above.

With regard to the impact of internal migration on household income and consumption, Tutu (1995)—drawing on the 1991 Ghana Migration Survey—found that the migration-induced decline in household labor supply tended to be compensated by the extra effort put forth by the remaining household members, such that 52 percent of households interviewed reported no loss in short-run household output and no expected decrease in the long-run output. Drawing on the same dataset, Asante (1995) highlighted the importance of remittances sent by migrants in the urban areas to the rural origin communities in raising the welfare of households sending migrants and narrowing the welfare gap between rural and urban communities.

More recently, econometric efforts at establishing a relationship between migration and household welfare generally found that migration tends to increase the welfare of sending households. Using data from the 1991/92 and 1998/99 rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), Litchfield and Waddington (2003) found that migrants have a higher standard of living than non-migrants. However, the migration premium halved between 1991/92 and 1998/99 and the difference was not statistically significant when the analysis was expanded to non-monetary welfare indicators. Furthermore, Litchfield and Waddington (2003) found no significant difference in the probability of being poor between migrants and non-migrants.

While the Litchfield and Waddington (2003) study did not control for the selection bias in the migration decision, studies by Tsegai (2005) and Boakye-Yiadom (2008) took explicit account of the non-random selection of migrants. Tsegai (2005) found that incomes of migrant households are higher than those of otherwise comparable nonmigrant households, but the coverage of his study was limited to the Volta Basin. Boakye-Yiadom (2008), using data from the 1998/99 round of GLSS (GLLS 4), found that, although some rural-urban migrants experienced welfare losses, on average, ruralurban migration significantly enhanced the welfare of internal migrants.

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