Return migration: a failure or success? Evidence from Ghanaian returnees

This blog was written by Karen Salazar Ruiz, a MSc Development Economics student at the University of Sussex and a Migrating out of Poverty Research Assistant. (salazarruizkaren@gmail.com)

Migration is an important part of household livelihoods, often undertaken to improve welfare, or to provide a form of insurance for household members at origin, and sometimes under duress.

Migration is often viewed as a one-way movement, from origin to destination, yet in reality, migration movements are not so linear, often involving movements onwards to other destinations, and also movements back to origin. Therefore, migration is better viewed as a dynamic phenomenon.

The OECD (2013) estimates that on average, about two international migrants in five will leave the host country within five years of their arrival. This is referred as return migration, which can be explained as “the act or process of going back or being taken back to the point of departure” (IOM, 2019). Return migration can be voluntary or forced. The former can be assisted or independent, while the latter involves force, compulsion or coercion.

The decision to migrate is influenced by the opportunity to improve economic, social or political conditions, which is why it is commonly believed that returning to the place of origin represents the case of a failed migration.

However, return migration may be better viewed as the next stage after migrants have achieved their target savings, accumulated assets and knowledge to invest and use in their home countries. These and many other reasons justify the return and support the idea that it cannot always be classified as unsuccessful.

Return migrants bring with them knowledge, expertise and skills that may be beneficial for the economic and social development of the country. Wahba (2015) studied return migration and its multiple potential gains. Living abroad provides migrants with the temporary opportunity to increase their income and savings, and acquire new skill sets to use later in their home country, where they will have higher purchasing power and better rewarded jobs.

In addition, return migrants are more likely to start a business than non-migrants, as the human capital, savings and experience overseas help increase their entrepreneurship (Wahba and Zenou, 2012).

In the case of Ghana, the migration dynamic is based on economic, social, political and environmental factors, such as poverty, landlessness and economic dislocations (Awumbila et al., 2008). The International Organisation for Migration has been an important driver of migrant resettlement and since 2006, they have assisted approximately 2,587 Ghanaian migrants to re-enter and reintegrate to the community.

There is a data gap for returnees due to the lack of definitions and of indicators. The Migrating out of Poverty household surveys include questions on return migrants in three African countries, including Ghana. Returned migrants are defined as “an individual who has been away for at least 3 months over the past 10 years, and who has lived in his/her native place for the last 12 consecutive months”.

The 2018 Ghana survey covers a sample of 1,429 households containing 9,889 individuals in the regions of Brong Ahafo, Northern Region, Upper West, Upper East, and Volta, from which 1,672 are current migrants and the rest are resident members. Given this definition, 308 returned individuals were identified. The reasons these individuals gave for return are the following:

Figure 1. Reasons to return 

Most of the migrants have returned from migration journeys made within the country: 82% of return migrants had been internal migrants. Given that 85% of current migrants (people still away from the household) are internal migrants; it does not appear that the incidence of return is much different between internal and international migrants. Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Togo were the principal destinations of now returned migrants.

We do not see any evidence that men are more likely to return than women, but we do notice that returnees are generally older, more likely to be married and have children than migrants who are still away. On average, the returned migrants had been away home for 46 months. Around a quarter had acquired educational or work qualifications while being away and 40% had sent money back to their families at their place of origin in the year before they came home.

Regarding their overall experience away from home, 66% ranked it as positive, while the rest were exposed to negative situations. The risks that migrants face are not only financial as they encountered physical injuries, exposure to hazardous chemicals, unhygienic conditions, discrimination and harassment by city authorities. 

Although there are multiple channels through which return migration can be assessed, the Ghana survey highlights the fact that these individuals were able to earn money, support their household and accumulate human capital.

In the context of Ghana, it can be appreciated that the main reasons for return are social not economic. However, this does not imply that return migration does not contribute to economic development, as the data suggests that returnees are successful in accumulating savings and human capital when being away from home. Given that 72% of the returnees were employed at their destination, compared to the 15% of current migrants who report having a job at destination, it can be suggested that return migration should not be seen only as a failed attempt at migration but part of the complex way people and their families seek to improve their situation.

References 

• Awumbila A., Manuh T., Quartey P, Tagoe C.,Bosiakoh T. (2008). Migration Country Paper (Ghana). Centre for Migration Studies. Migration Studies. University of Ghana. African Perspectives on Human Mobility Programme
• International Organisation of Migration <https://www.iom.int/countries/ghana>
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. International migration database 2013. 
• Wahba, J. (2015). Who benefits from return migration to developing countries?. IZA World of Labor: 123 doi: 10.15185/izawol.123
• Wahba, J., Zenou, Y. (2012). Out of sight, out of mind: Migration, entrepreneurship and social capital. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 42, issue 5, 890-903

Behind the research: Anne-Meike Fechter

Over the course of the last 10 years, the Migrating out of Poverty consortium has drawn on the enthusiasm and expertise of many people across the globe. This blog series focuses on the people behind the research, who have kindly shared personal reflections and learning from their experience of working with the consortium.

Anne-Meike Fechter has worked for the Migrating out of Poverty programme since 2017, as a Reader in Anthropology at the University of Sussex, working on the theme of gender and generations, focusing on Ghana.

“The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been continuously shaping the way we teach on our Master’s course on ‘Migration and Global Development’. 

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt from the programme is that long-term policy changes that work for migrants require patience and persistence. It’s been a privilege to sharing insights from so many engaged researchers across countries.”

The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been a true team effort, and we appreciate the role each individual has played in producing and disseminating the research.

Thank you for all your hard work with the Migrating out of Poverty programme, Anne-Meike!

The intricacies of the complex world of migration brokerage

by Priya Deshingkar

There is an increasingly broader and deeper realization that there are many players in the migration industry, a loose and changing conglomeration of individuals and institutions that work together to facilitate mobility. The incentives for brokerage are often large, and there are many people in sending and receiving communities who have a stake in ensuring that irregular migration and smuggling succeeds.

A recent webinar from the Migrating out of Poverty consortium presented cutting-edge analysis on migration brokerage in Africa and Asia. Presenters from the Asia Research Institute in Singapore, the Centre for Migration Studies in Ghana and the University of Sussex in the UK explored how brokers are part of the system of creating and producing precarity through their role in facilitating journeys and connecting workers with employment. Migrant workers live and work in precarious conditions, not just because of the way they’ve been employed, but because of the restrictions placed on them by the immigration and government systems that control their rights from the country of destination.

In policy terms, the migration industry is usually framed as an evil and highly exploitative system that perpetuates forced and unfree labour. However, case studies from the webinar demonstrated that migrants can, and do, exercise agency even in highly constrained and unfree situations.

Traditionally scholars have considered worker agency in relation to collective forms of protest mainly in industrial work settings. However, more academic attention is now being given to individual forms of agency. There is now greater recognition of migrants’ strategies of accepting precarious work in the short term in order to build a better future in the longer term. But the role of brokers in achieving long term aspirations, and how they are integral to migrant agency, is an under-researched area. This framing better reflects migrant’s own views and experiences of brokerage, which can often be at odds with the way that brokerage is viewed in migration policy and international development more broadly.

The research presented in the webinar provides insights into the internal workings of brokerage networks and their role in recruiting, training, obtaining official documents and visas, organising journeys and ensuring placements at destination. It explores the profit-making impetus of brokerage but also pays attention to the overlapping moral motives of brokers and relations of reciprocity between migrants and brokers.

In Ghana, for example, internal migration (mainly rural to urban) is very common, with girls and women migrating to urban areas to find employment in low-paid and insecure places particularly in domestic work. Here brokers are embedded in the system of exploitation by moulding the migrants’ behavior and appearance to be “good” and fit the expectations of their employers who are looking for docile and subservient women and girls.

However, the studies from the webinar also conceptualized brokers as an important part of migrant risk management strategies in enabling them to fulfil their own migration agendas. While brokerage is often viewed in a “here and now” way, the studies show how brokers work with migrants to realise their future goals. For example, when migrants want to switch jobs or bargain to improve their working conditions, brokers can play a critical role.

A study of how employment agents in Singapore and Indonesia recruit and place migrant workers introduces the concept of conditionality. That is, the proposition that a migrant worker’s experience of precarity is contingent on a set of formal and informal conditions, the actions of institutional actors, and migrants’ own resources and strategies. Viewing conditionality as not merely additive, but as compounding, sharpens our understanding of precarious work. For example, remember the childhood game ‘Snakes and Ladders’? (NB: Snakes and Ladders, originating from India and commercialised as a family board game in the UK, and again commercially reincarnated as ‘Chutes and Ladders’ in the USA). In this game, ‘Snakes/Chutes’ or vices (poor decisions) set one back and ‘Ladders’ or virtues (good decisions) pushes one forward.

The researchers in Singapore use this model of ‘Chutes and Ladders’ to help demonstrate how migrant domestic workers move in and out of varying degrees of precarity over time. Based on qualitative interviews with migration intermediaries, the study suggested that these ‘chutes’ and ‘ladders’ are not static, pre-existing, or inherent; instead, they are dynamically produced by migration brokers, who actively produce, shore up, or mitigate situations of precarity for workers by ‘patching’ chutes, leaving them, or opening up new ones. Conversely, brokers and employers redraw the boundaries of conditionality through the creation of ladders. Workers’ access to security is hence not merely conditional, but conditionally compounded, based on the necessity of simultaneously meeting multiple mutually reinforcing and interwoven conditions.

The webinar does not try to downplay the inequality in most migrant–broker relations. However, it provides a multi-layered view whereby brokers and migrants, both, should be understood as co-creators of complex pathways of migrant circulation. Migration brokerage crafts and supports structures that produce ‘good migrants’ and precarities, however, over time, migrants may successfully maneuver and challenge these structures with the potential for social and economic change. Furthermore, the research shows that brokers can also play a role in lessening precarity and increasing protection for migrants from abuse.

Listen to the recorded webinar here: Connection Men, Dalals, Maid Agents - traffickers or not?

See the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies special issue articles here:

Please, thank you and sorry – brokering migration and constructing identities for domestic work in Ghana 
Mariama Awumbila

A game of chutes-and-ladders: How maid agents and domestic workers navigate the migration industry in Singapore
Kellynn Wee

The recruitment of Bangladeshi migrants for construction work in Qatar
Priya Deshingkar

Demonised migration brokers can point out where policy is going wrong

In the fight against human trafficking and the rise of modern slavery, a top priority for governments and human rights organisations has been to “break the business model” of migration brokers thought to be the main channel for such exploitation. Those same governments might do well to understand what those brokers do, and why they exist in the first place.

If you want to see brokers in action, then domestic work and construction work are as good a place to start as any. In these sectors people can be exploited thanks to a lack of written contracts, the hidden nature of the work inside private homes (in the case of domestic workers), non-compliance with labour laws.

Migrant workers from poorer countries and communities are heavily represented in both occupations. Often, the only way they can negotiate complex regulations is with the help of migration brokers who have the skills, knowledge and connections needed to move into these different worlds. Brokers are often former migrants or well connected and trusted members of the migrant’s own community.

The other side of the story

Brokers have been demonised as exploiters of migrant labour due to the level of control they can exert over migrants with no other means of support. However, there is another side to this which sheds light on why migrants keep using brokers. Recent research that I have been involved with in Ghana and Bangladesh shows a complex reality where brokers are indeed complicit in perpetuating exploitation and conditions of forced labour, but also help migrants to bargain for better working conditions.

Chapainawabganj in Bangladesh, a high migration district near the border with India, sees large numbers of men from farming families migrate to Qatar for construction work. In the Bangladeshi popular discourse, brokers are called Adam Bepari or “traders in human beings” typifying the view which assumes all the power lies with the broker. Similar ways of describing recruiters are seen in other countries.

The government has attempted to eliminate brokers but with little success. Bangladeshi men continue to use informal brokers for several reasons. Legal migration through the Kafala system, the sponsored visa system in the Gulf, is expensive and difficult because skills may not match available jobs. Migrants also say that they feel more protected by the “moral contract” with the broker, witnessed by family and elders. Many also want “free visas” that don’t tie them to a single employer, so they might have the opportunity to move on to better jobs through social networks in Qatar. This was only possible if brokers guided them down an irregular migration route.

Even when brokers broke promises on wages and contracts, migrants regarded the migration as successful because they had reached Qatar and found work, however exploitative. Migrants factor in hardship and precarity in the short term to achieve long-term goals of improved living standards and prospects for their families. Brokers, however imperfect, are seen as a necessary stepping stone.

Domestic work in Ghana

There are echoes of the same story in west Africa, where there is rural-urban migration for domestic work within Ghana. Here too brokers are widely regarded as unscrupulous traders who exploit vulnerable domestic workers.

However, our interviews with 76 migrants, employers, brokers and officials show the grey area. Brokers do help to maintain the status quo by pressuring workers to accept exploitative terms and behave in subservient ways, but they also help migrants with settling into urban areas, bargaining and job-switching for better working conditions.

Brokers offer a route through which migrants can negotiate with employers, an otherwise thankless task. Unlike formal agencies, informal brokers helped employers with recommendations on character and behaviour, an aspect regarded as very important by women who were recruiting another female to work in their home.

Lessons for policy

These two very different examples show clear similarities. Migrants and employers are reluctant to engage with the formal system and can have a strong preference for informal brokers who they trust. Informal brokers are also cheaper. In Ghana, employers are charged a non-refundable 250 Ghanaian cedis (about US$60) fee and workers 100 cedis in the official system. Informal brokers charge less than half and tailor their fees to each client.

Formal agencies are also not designed to help migrants with the things that they need most. Those seeking work away from home need shepherding through complex procedures, support and financing, and someone who can negotiate on their behalf. Work secured through brokers may pay less than work secured through formal channels, but getting into the labour market at all is a prize for many migrants.

Policy makers in Ghana, Bangladesh and beyond should recognise that brokerage is fuelled by tightening border controls and work permit systems, and by unwelcoming urban areas. Launching an attack on brokerage without easing migration barriers will not work. In fact, the way brokers work should encourage more migrant friendly practices such as cheap loans, flexible repayment and support with integration.

There are strong parallels between the situation we have described in the global South and the experience right now in Europe where governments are trying to eliminate brokers without providing workable alternatives to help migrants manage risk. All migration through brokers is labelled as trafficking. Examples of extreme exploitation are highlighted as governments seek to deter migrants. The role that brokers play in easing the path to economic migration and providing protection through the journey is rarely talked about.

The clear lesson from Ghana and Bangladesh is that a flourishing brokerage industry is a signal that formal channels are failing, or at least fail to meet the nuanced demands of migration and migrants. The demonisation of brokers as exploitative criminals is not entirely unfair, but it falls short if we are to genuinely understand the lives and motivations of migrants while legal and legitimate migration remains a privilege enjoyed by a rich and educated minority.

Acknowledgements: This article was first published in The Conversation.

Brokers in the migration industry in Ghana: The positive side untold

By Emmanuel Quarshie

Despite their significant role in the migration industry, little has been said about the role of brokers. When people do focus on brokers they tend to highlight the unscrupulous behaviours of some recruitment agents. However a wide array of recruitment agencies in Ghana play roles in the management of risks among migrants and are valued as a result. A working paper by the Migrating Out of PovertyResearch Programme Consortium examined the agency role in the migration brokerage for domestic workers in Ghana.

People on the move

The relative importance of the North-South migration in Ghana has gained ground within key policy dialogue in recent times. The surge in the growth rate of Ghana’s informal sector within urban settlements has remained one of the key pull factors compelling young people to migrate from the Northern part of the country to the southern cities. Over the past few decades, the country has experienced admirable economic growth coupled with improvement in infrastructure and larger engagement in the service sector. This, in turn, has tremendously increased women’s participation in the labour force rendering them less able to participate in household production. As a result there has been a renaissance in the already existing industry which trains people (mostly migrants) to take up these abandoned domestic activities.

What do brokers do?

Brokers are key players in the migration process spanning the pre-migration, migration and post-migration periods. Trust and cultural brokerage are central to this, linking the sending and destination communities and managing the migration process. As part of their role brokers reassure the migrant’s family that their ward is in trusted hands with a high level of certainty of acquiring a good job. It is also the duty of the broker to guarantee the employer that all possible damages, time wastage or misconduct will be resolved appropriately. They also serve as guarantors for migrant workers to ensure some level of credibility and trust in their prospective employers. This can be in the form of written or unwritten agreements with a signed memorandum of understanding. As noted by one of the agencies:

“Our girls cannot mistreat our clients’ kids and they also cannot do the same to our girls. Whatever he/she damages, you, the client, should let us know and, if you want her to pay, she will work for it and pay but you cannot mistreat the person because she is your home help. She is not your slave, she is there for you and you are also there for her, so you work together.”

Alex, a broker, said:

“Yes, I am the guarantor for almost all of them and it is very risky; for most of them, it is because I know either their brother or their sister so I am able to guarantee them. With most of the girls I send to work for expatriates, the least thing that happens, I am the first person to be called, so it is very risky and I always pray that nothing bad happens. I always ensure that I talk to them about staying out of trouble, I always tell them I did not take a penny from anyone when they arrived. Instead, I fed them and paid for their transport so they should stay out of trouble. By the grace of God, nothing bad has happened.”

They also work to overcome negative and prejudiced attitudes among prospective employers.  A recruitment agency acknowledged:

“People mostly don’t trust the Ewes [the third-largest ethnic group in Ghana, mainly from the Volta region] partly because of the fear of juju (voodoo). You would be amazed at how many enlightened people will tell you that. Yes, the Ashanti girls are loud and lazy, yeah a lot of people don’t like them… People prefer Fantes, Akuapems, yeah. Central and Western regions. Oh, Akuapems are polite, do you know what I mean?”

Additionally, brokers serve as mediators for bargaining over wages, working conditions, and workers’ rights. Even though brokers can be guilty of influencing workers to accept jobs where the conditions and wages are poor, they importantly serve as an interlocuter for women in vulnerable positions with little education when they need to negotiate the terms of their employment. As stated by Margarette, from Hammani:

“You send somebody to a place and maybe the agreement was that he/she was supposed to stay at work until Friday and go away on weekends but maybe the employer will say ‘I want you to stay Saturday and Sunday’. Then we draw their attention to the fact that, in order for the person to stay on Saturday and Sunday, the employer needs to pay extra to the person. If the person doesn’t agree, the employer can’t force him or her.”

The way forward

Despite the above-mentioned roles of brokers within the migration industry, they have been generally perceived to be illegitimate and unscrupulous in their approaches to mediating between the prospective workers and employers. This is due to the presence of some non-traceable, unregistered and illegal individuals who manoeuvre their ways into the system to exploit the industry to their own advantage at the detriment of their legit cohorts. However, brokers are important elements in migrants’ strategies to exercise agency, which they would probably otherwise struggle with, given the highly unequal power relationships they face at home and also at their work destination with employers. It is therefore imperative to see the need for a more nuanced and more differentiated understanding of the role and the practices of brokers and intermediaries as they navigate the multi-faceted space in the recruitment process for migrant domestic workers. This is especially important as efforts to regulate the domestic work sector in Ghana intensify. 

Kayayei Migrants of Madina Market in Accra, Ghana

By Mariana Chambel

Kayayei or Kaya Yei

a Ghanaian term that refers to a female porter or bearer, who has usually migrated from a rural community to any of Ghana's urban cities in search of work.

As part of the informal sector of the economy in Ghana, kayayei women and girls address market transportation gaps and assist in market exchange in Accra. They are improving local economic development. The kaya business significantly contributes to improving the standard of living of young female migrants and their families. After a heavy rain one morning, I headed to Madina market, wishing to find a group of women and girls taking a break from their duties to get the chance to interview them. Navigating the market between crowds, motorbikes, goats, and numerous kayayei (carrying big pots) I found a group of women gathered in a circle sitting on their upended pots; some eating, some feeding their babies or simply taking a rest.

Making the decision to travel
Fati comes from Wa. She is 22 years old, divorced and has one child staying with her mother back home. This day was her first day working as a Kayayei and she had found her place among other women that came from the same region.

Salamatu also comes from Wa. After arriving in the city she looked for people from her home town as a part of her ‘network’. They assisted her in finding a place to stay in Accra. She is married but has made the move to Accra alone a year ago. Salamatu came to Accra to help to support one of her siblings to stay in school, after the person who was sponsoring their education passed away.
Amina is from Tamale. She is married and her husband is in the north with their four children. She arrived four months ago and is planning to go back home by December. Amina came to the city to assist her husband in paying for their children’s education.

It is no coincidence that these three internal migrants – Fati, Salamatu and Amina –all came from regions in the north. In Ghana, there is a high level of income inequality between rural and urban areas, with a disproportionately high percentage of the poor living in rural areas. Since independence, the rural areas of Ghana have been neglected while urban areas have been developed attracting migrants from rural areas to come to Accra.

Why migrate?
The interviews of Fati, Salamatu and Amina reveal that they have opted to migrate as a strategy to improve their livelihoods. They migrate looking to improve their employment opportunities. Fati, after arriving only five days ago, has found a place to stay. She bought a pot in the city and started her first day of work as a kayayei. She aspires to raise funds to learn hair-dressing and practice it back home. Salamatu has been settled in Accra for a longer period and is not sure when she will return to her home town as in Accra she has a job and is able to support herself, her infant and family back home. Amina is an example of someone who has entered into the informal sector to improve her family’s livelihood, by providing remittances and school items for her children, ensuring they stay in school.

Having little to no safety net, the three of them find in each other the strength to persist with their goals:

• They stick together both in housing accommodation and during daily work. 

Fati and Salamatu are living together with 10 other women, most of them from the same ethnic and cultural background. Amina is also staying in the same place, even though she comes from a different region. Her reason is simple: “… because we are all kayayei”.

The three of them mention that they feel safe surrounded by women working in the same business and being inside locked doors at night. They do not fear for rape nor robbery inside their rooms – “No I am not afraid of rape because of the doors but for the money, none of the room-mates would steal money” (Fati)

• They help each other financially 

Salamatu explains that their community group of seven kayayei has formed a “Susu group” (informal loan club) which aims at rotating 50 GHC (Ghana cedi) a week among the women. This collective strategy protects each one of them in case of financial need - “…should anyone have a financial problem, we would be able to help her… we would be helping each other out financially if someone becomes sick or bereaved etc.” (Salamatu). Then, she adds, on Sundays, seniors organize meetings to discuss issues related to work.

Amina reinforces the idea of companionship when she says – “If someone is really sick, we can contribute to take the person to the hospital and even contribute more money if the need arises and then transport the person back home”.

Migrant care and support
The kayayei have been identified as one of the vulnerable groups who need social interventions, including: access to free healthcare, shelter, scholarship grants for their children, and the establishment of response centres to protect their rights and to protect against gender-based violence.
Yet, according to the interviews, the government of Ghana barely supports them, nor recognizes the pathways through which the livelihoods of these young female migrants contribute to development. The kaya business has been labelled as a part of distress migration. In my opinion, this view focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of their migration. There is a gap in migration policies, research and evidence around the links between rural-urban migration and poverty reduction, as well as, in the documentation of migrants’ coping strategies.

Are kayayei vulnerable? Yes, but they're also determined, brave and resilient. Migration allows them to play important roles: in the economy, within their families, within the kayayei community and in their personal lives. They feel these opportunities would not have been available if they had stayed back at home. It is time to recognize their strength and contribution to all these different spheres, and to make policies to support them and protect their rights.




Mariana Chambel is a Migrating out of Poverty Communications Research Assistant based at the University of Ghana, Centre for Migration Studies currently working on issues related to the Migration Industry, in particular Kayayei and domestic workers.

What if migration had not occurred?

Economic and Social counterfactuals of migration in Ghana

by Collins Yeboah

Poko, is a 26 year old, unmarried man and a first male child to his parents comes from Nandowli in the Upper West region of Ghana. After secondary school, Poko could not continue with his education as a result of poverty. He migrated to Accra to work in the informal sector so he could support his family back home. Poko remits money to his family regularly for their upkeep; something he would not have done if migration had not occur. However, Poko’s migration to Accra has delayed his plans of getting married and having children. Poko says:

“I don’t have a wife. The pressure from home is too much to bear! I am happy I am able to provide for them though”

Edem, is a 29 year old migrant from Peki, in the Volta region who lives happily with his wife at Haasto, a suburb of Accra. Edem, a school dropout, migrated to Accra about six years ago to work in the informal sector as a mason. He married his wife two years ago something he says “he wouldn’t have done had he not migrated to Accra”.

Though Edem feels sad for not being able to further his education, he has gained financially and socially from his migration to Accra. He is able to send money back home to his household members back home but not on a regular basis:

“They are always on me to send them money. But you know I have another family here to cater for”

The search for opportunities 
For the two migrants, their migration to Accra, started with thoughts about opportunities in settings other than their places of origin. Migration is an action invested with a great deal of hope. They had hoped for better jobs and improved living conditions. For migrants like Poko and Edem, from relatively poorer areas, migration to towns and cities is often viewed as a relative increase in economic status as it increases their incomes in an “absolute” sense. For migrants’ households it’s an insurance and an additional income to supplement on-farm activities.

The challenges of migration 
There is quite a lot of evidence on economic gains of migration with little or no emphasis on social gains. Recent studies however indicate that migration into cities could result in; delayed marriages, deferred child birth, affects education, and emotional and psychological stress on migrants. From the two migrants, Poko has gained financially and remits back to his family members, however, he has lost socially because he is unable to marry something he would have done had migration not occurred:

“In my community, a man of my age should have a wife by now but here I am not married. I only work for my family not my welfare. Where I sleep, is too small to accommodate two people. In my community, people expect that a migrant like myself should have a better place to sleep so I can have a good woman to marry”

Poko’s statement underlines what migrants can potentially lose because of migration.

Social counterfactuals
The stories of Poko and Edem raise points about the social counterfactuals of migration. Fewer studies have explored how migrants and their households would have fared had migration not occurred. Most studies focus on monetary measurement of welfare impacts of migration with little or no focus on social counterfactuals.

The Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana in collaboration with University of Sussex, UK study on “Migration into Cities in Ghana: An Analysis of the Counterfactual” examines whether (and by how much) rural-urban migrants and their households have gained in real income and welfare terms from their migration. The study focuses on both economic counterfactuals (e.g. gains/losses in terms of income, employment, assets accumulation) and social counterfactuals (e.g. gains/losses in terms of marriage, child bearing, family formation, education etc.)

The findings suggest that on average households lose from migration. However, this is not an experience shared by all households: better off households actually gain, while poorer households are more likely to lose. Also migration to cities has affected marriages, timing of first birth, education and psychological status of migrants. Thus, the findings suggest that not everyone may gain from migration and that it may be better for some people to remain behind at the origin.

Two policy briefings from the study are also available for download
Migration to Cities in Ghana: Economic benefits to Migrants and their Households 
Social Benefits and Losses of Migrating into Cities in Ghana

Minding the Migration Data Gap: new data from the Migrating out of Poverty Consortium

By Julie Litchfield

Research on migration and development has seen a dramatic resurgence in recent years. As Michael Clemens, Çağlar Özden and Hillel Rapoport Michael A. Clemens, Çağlar Özden, Hillel RapoportMichael A. Clemens, Çağlar Özden, Hillel Rapoportoutline in their introduction to the special issue on migration and development of World Development in 2014[1], part of this renewed interest and increase in published research is due to long overdue[2] improvements in the availability and quality of data. Estimates of international migration and remittances are now published by the World Bank and the UN Population Division compiles census data to give estimates of migrants stocks.

This improvement in data quality and data availability allows us to make tentative statements about the extent of internal and international migration. One of the most serious attempts to estimate internal migration is underway by researchers at the IMAGE project who use census data to estimate that globally in 2005 there were 229 million people living within the same country but in a different part of that country compared to five years before. Estimates for lifetime internal migration are much higher, with 763 million people in 2005 living outside their region of birth.[3]  Combining these with UN estimates of international migrants of 232 million people living outside their country of birth, suggest that nearly a billion people live away from their region of birth. 

Census data is useful for providing insights into how many people are migrants and their demographic profile but is less useful for understanding the why and the how of migration. Understanding why people migrate and for how long, how that contributes to, or even changes, their and their household’s livelihoods and well-being are just some of the questions of great interest to migration researchers and policy makers. These questions can be answered with qualitative research and there are some impressive examples to draw on which provide rich and nuanced stories of migrant lives. Deirdre McKay’s ethnographic work provides new insights into the aspirations and experiences of Filipino temporary labour migrants;[4] Trond Waage uses visual anthropological tools to document the lives of young migrants in west Africa; and Migrating out of Poverty (MOOP) partners at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, have used qualitative methods to shed light on the recruitment of Indonesian domestic workers.

Complementing this qualitative work is a growing body of evidence emerging from quantitative research using household surveys. These offer the opportunity to include more people in the research sample than qualitative research typically allows, anything from a few hundred to a few thousand people is pretty normal, and to use more detailed questions that capture a wider range of data than is feasible to collect in a population census. There are a growing number of household surveys for developing countries which capture information on migrants. For example, the Mexican Migrant Project collects and publishes data on migration between Mexico and the United States, and a number of household and labour force surveys now contain supplementary modules on migration.[5]  These are encouraging signs that the migration data gap is closing but there is still some way to go.  

The Migrating out of Poverty (MOOP) consortium is contributing towards this by publishing open access micro data from a set of five comparable household surveys collected between 2013 and 2015, in five developing countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe.   The precise sampling strategy differs across countries, and we can’t claim that our samples are nationally representative. However because we adopt a purposive approach, selecting regions which are known to be migrant-sending and sampling quotas of households with and without migrants, we generate large enough sub-samples of households and individuals across different categories of migrants and non-migrants to make us confident that our findings are robust.

Our sample sizes range between 1200 and 1400 households, with data available on every member of those households. We adopt a near identical survey instrument in each country, which facilitates comparisons to be drawn across countries. Our household questionnaire includes a complete household roster collecting social, economic and demographic data on both migrant and non-migrant members of the household, and a specially designed module that captures interactions between migrants and their households in the form of remittances and social contacts. Our survey also explores perceptions of migration as a way of improving the living standards of households.

One of the important contributions the MOOP consortium hopes to make by collecting and publishing this data is to support more research into internal and intra-regional migration. As the figures of migration estimates quoted above suggest, three out of four migrants remain within their country of birth and much international migration is within the global South. Our data will help to shed more light on these movements and help to inform policies that respond appropriately to those affected by migration.

The full data sets from the first three of our surveys undertaken in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Ghana, are now available to download for free from www.migratingoutofpoverty.dfid.gov.uk. Data is available in both STATA and SPSS formats and users can access the questionnaire and a short user guide for each survey. Data for Ethiopia and Zimbabwe will be made available in 2016. 

We want students, researchers and teachers to access the data, and policy makers to use it. Feed back to us and let us know what you do with it.

Bangladesh internal and international migration destination maps

Remittances help fund improvements in housing

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[1] Michael A. Clemens, Çağlar Özden, Hillel Rapoport (2014) “Migration and Development Research is Moving Far Beyond Remittances” World Development, Volume 64, December 2014, Pages 121-124.

[2] Read about the “century of ignored recommendations” on the “biggest blind spot in our view of the world economy” in Patricia Santo Tomas, Lawrence Summers and Michael Clemens (2009) “Migrants Count: Five Steps Towards Better Migration Data”, Report of the Commission on International Migration Data for Development Research and Policy; Centre for Global Development, May 2009.

[3] Details on methodology can be found in Bell, M, and Charles-Edwards, E. [2013]: ‘Cross-national comparisons of internal migration: an update of global patterns and trends’, Technical paper 2013/1, Population Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York. 

[4] McKay D. 2012. Global Filipinos. Indiana University Press.

[5] See Santo Tomas et al (2009) for a useful audit of migration data.

Julie Litchfield is the Theme Leader for Quantitative Research for the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium (MOOP) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Sussex. Working Papers discussing aspects of the findings of the Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia and Zimbabwe surveys are also available. A summary of key data from the Indonesia survey has also been published. See also Eva-Maria Egger's presentation of the preliminary findings of MOOP's household survey conducted in Zimbabwe  and her related blog discussing the context:  Migration in Southern Africa: A Visit to the City of Migrants.

Cities on the climate front line

By Priya Deshingkar

Extreme weather has displaced around 26 million people from their homes every year since 2008. Yet climate migration has failed to make it on to the negotiating table at major climate change summits, and COP 21 could be no different.

The draft agreement gives short shrift to climate-induced migration: the word is used just twice in the 54-page document, and the only other mention relates to a “displacement coordination facility” to support those displaced. Campaigners and major migration agencies fear that even these will be axed from the final treaty. This matters because without momentum at global level, governments may fail to put in place policies and infrastructure to address links between climate and migration.

Extreme weather events and sea-level rise will displace people. But evidence shows this is unlikely to result in the ‘tides of people’ swamping Europe that scaremongers often speak of. [1]

Rather, cities in the global South are likely to bear the brunt of climate migration — or, to be more precise, their slums.

This is certainly the case in South Asia, which has some of the world’s fastest growing megacities. In Dhaka, capital of disaster-prone Bangladesh, roughly 350,000 migrants arrive every year, adding to the city’s 14 million inhabitants. Most are displaced from the delta region where storms and sea level rise have made farming less viable.

One way of viewing such migration is as a way to adapt to climate change. But government attitudes and policies around rural-to-urban migration are increasingly hostile. [2] Many governments refuse to provide services for fear of encouraging further migration, which they link to worsening crime, filth and disease. Research from Ghana and India shows the extent of government inaction.

This inaction keeps in place awful systems of waste disposal. Take the notorious ‘flying toilets’ of Accra and Nairobi, where waste is put into plastic bags and flung as far away as possible. Or open defecation, which plagues cities such as Delhi and Mumbai.

For cities to cope, local governments must recognise the inevitability of climate-induced migration, and take action to upgrade infrastructure and services.

This will be tough. The high density of informal settlements coupled with insecure tenancy can make it impossible to improve sanitation. Virtually every inch of land in informal settlements is in use, making it difficult to dig trenches for drainage. Many people live in tenements under constant threat of eviction, meaning landlords are reluctant to improve toilets.

Not only that, but many informal settlements develop in marginal areas of the city that are vulnerable to flooding and destruction due to severe weather.

There are more enlightened, imaginative approaches to improving urban settlements. In Mumbai, the NGO SPARC gathered feedback from local people and built community toilets that 20,000 people use every day. In Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, the Human Needs Project NGO developed a clever system of wastewater recycling for unplumbed neighbourhoods. Often these ideas come from local people themselves: the Global Initiative on Community-Based Adaptation is compiling and sharing information on what people are doing to adapt — and these ideas are likely to be more effective than top-down formulas.

But governments must also act. And cities shouldn’t only see newcomers as a risk or burden: often migrants are the most resourceful of their peers, providing cheap labour, trading and manufacturing goods for urban consumers. A more enlightened attitude to migrants will benefit cities and all who live in them.

Priya Deshingkar is Research Director of the Migrating out of Poverty research consortium. Her interests include precarious migrant occupations, exploitation in labour markets, informal settlements, gender and poverty. 

This blog was originally published by Sci.Dev.Net on 3 December 2015 under their Focus on Migration series and is also available at: 

http://www.scidev.net/global/migration/analysis-blog/migration-cities-climate-front-line.html.  

References

[1] The Government Office for London Migration and global environmental change: future challenges and opportunities (UK government, 2011)

[2] UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs World population policies 2013 (UN, 2013)

Migration and changing intra-household gender roles and power relations

By Collins Yeboah

In Ghana, both young men and women migrate internationally and internally. Young, single men who migrate internationally dream of a better life, for example as construction workers in Libya or as professional football players in Europe, but early research on Ghanaian women migrants going abroad focused on those who migrated to work as commercial sex workers in neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. Analysis of internal migration focused on migration from Northern to Southern Ghana due to the relative impoverishment of the north vis-à-vis the south of the country. Such migration initially involved young men who moved down to work on cocoa farms or as tenant farmers and more recently as scrap metal dealers. Since the economic downturn of the 1980s however, young, single women have begun to migrate internally, usually from the poorer northern part of the country to the south, and have been the subject of much scholarly interest. 

 

The Centre for Migration Studies, under the auspices of the Migrating out of Poverty Research programme, is currently undertaking a study, “Migration, Intra-Household Dynamics and Youth Aspirations in Ghana” which examines the ways in which migration can move people out of poverty. As I reflect on this, I remember my encounter with Asana in a commercial vehicle in my recent trip to Tamale in the north of Ghana, which epitomises the experiences of female migrants from the North to the South. 

 

Asana sits next to me in a bus from Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana going to Accra, in the southern part of the country. She had spent several minutes on the phone. At a rest stop, Asana explained to me why she had had such a long telephone conversation.  Her husband, Fuseini has used the money she had left for the children’s school fees to buy seeds for the farm instead, something they did not agree on. She laments that her husband is only a subsistence farmer and the proceeds of the farm cannot fully provide for their needs and those of their three children (Abiba, 17, Musah, 15 and Moustapha, 11). With the help of a friend she migrated to Accra a year and a half ago to find work that would enable her to support the family. Since her migration she has consistently sent GHS 200 (approximately US $61) to her husband each month for the upkeep of the family which has improved their standard of living. As Asana is supporting the family financially, her husband Fuseini sees to the household chores and raises the children, tasks which, according to the society’s gender norms, would traditionally have been done exclusively by Asana. 

 

The conversation with Asana suggests that migration can change household gender roles. In Ghana, labour migration is socially constructed in accordance with idealised notions of gendered work and responsibilities. Men are often seen as “potential earners” and as household breadwinners, thus they are often favoured to migrate, while women are expected to stay behind to take care of the household. However, this structuring of gender roles is in the process of changing as evidenced by Asana’s migration to Accra in search of ways to enhance the wellbeing and survival of the household. 

 

Traditionally, women in Northern Ghana do not own lands but instead “borrow” them and are therefore excluded from agrarian decision-making. Studies indicate that a land crisis is leading to “deagrarianisation” or a societal moving away from agricultural production, and an increase in women’s non-farming activities, specifically in the processing of shea butter and groundnut oil as well as rice husking. Such non-farm activities do not provide enough income for the women yet they are expected to contribute towards the household’s food needs. As a result some of them migrate to the south in order to diversify their livelihoods. These migrant women provide financial support to their household through remittances.  It further brings to bear that household survival requires the contribution of each of its members irrespective of gender. Asana providing financial support for the family while Fuseini does the household chores and takes care of their children demonstrates the ways gender roles can change as a result of migration.

 

Asana’s story also illustrates how migrant remittances can have significant influence on power relations within household. Studies have shown that the sending of remittances may improve the position of women in their families and thereby enhance their participation in household decision-making. Despite receiving generally lower wages than men, research indicates that migrant women generally remit sums equal to those sent by their male counterparts. This can increase migrant women’s influence on household decisions while reducing their husbands' control over household resources.

 

Asana tells me that before her migration “I dared not ask what he used the money we got from the sales of the crops for. He used to tell me it was none of my business. I couldn’t even ask for the children’s school fees”. However she continues, “Now, I provide the money so I make decisions about what the money should be used on. You know something”, she explained “he wouldn’t have used the money to buy seeds if I were still there. I have told him to look for money to pay the fees else I won’t send him money again. I have done that before”, she concluded.    

 

This is a demonstration of how Asana has used migration as a means to increase her negotiation power within the household. She now has control over what the remittances she sends should be used for. Until her migration to Accra, such decisions were solely determined by her husband.

 

Migration has increasingly become a significant driver of transformation within the family and household and a significant livelihood strategy adopted by many to move out of poverty. However, there are relatively few studies on how the migration process affects intra-household power relations and gender roles. Thus the Centre for Migration Studies project “Migration, Intra-household Dynamics and Youth Aspirations in Ghana” will result in an in-depth understanding of the dynamics that surround internal migration and household relations. More so, as a society with gendered roles and rights, it will examine how migration is changing these roles and provide insights on how gender roles and ideologies are contested, reinforced or renegotiated within Ghanaian society.

 

 

Collins Yeboah is the Communications Officer for the West Africa hub of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, based at the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana.

Informal Settlements in Ghana

by Mariama Awumbila and Priya Deshingkar

On Saturday 20 June 2015, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly bulldozed Old Fadama, the largest informal settlement in Accra. Roughly 50,000 people, mostly migrants from Ghana’s northern regions, as well as others from the West Africa sub region, are said to have lost their properties during the demolition exercise, and many became homeless overnight. This is the not the first time that slum clearances and forced evictions have taken place in Ghana and Old Fadama residents have faced numerous eviction threats since 2002. 

Many slum clearances are done in the name of the greater public good. This most recent destruction of Old Fadama was ostensibly to improve storm water drainage and prevent floods in the city. The need to do this was highlighted by the 3^rd of June floods and fire in the city which claimed over 150 lives. The argument was that unauthorised construction, partly due to the activities of the residents at Old Fadama, was hindering the flow of water and in particular had stalled the execution of the Korle Lagoon Restoration Project, which aims to improve the ecological functioning of the Korle lagoon and so to improve Accra’s drainage, flooding and sanitation problems. City authorities felt that the demolition was necessary to help prevent future flooding and destruction around the Odaw river. The authorities are planning to construct drains that will allow water to flow into the Odawna drains and Korle Lagoon and then finally into the sea.

 

However it is not clear whether any scientific studies were conducted to establish the causality between activities at Old Fadama and flooding in Accra, and doubts have been expressed in the press about the effectiveness of slum clearance in addressing the root cause of flooding. Critics have called for a demolition “with a human face”.

 

Those who favour the evictions have an unwavering conviction that their approach is correct. Such approaches are embedded in the overall negative policy stance related to the migration of the poor. According to the 2013 World Population Policies Report, 84% of less developed country governments want to reduce rural to urban migration, up from 73% in the previous round. Africa and Asia have some of the highest percentages of governments with policies designed to reduce the flow of rural-urban migration: 85% in Africa and 84% in Asia. There has been a hardening of negative attitudes in many parts of the world and it is not clear what the empirical basis for this is.

 

There are a number of concerns about poor migrants and informal settlements - most inadequately supported by evidence - including the overburdening of urban services, the spread of disease, worsening crime and exacerbating vulnerability of cities to environmental disasters. There is little recognition of the economic contribution of the residents of informal settlements to the city in the form of cheap labour, specialised services and products.

 

A 2014 study on rural-urban migration to urban informal settlements or slums in Accra conducted by the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana under the Migrating Out of Poverty research programme showed that most of the residents in Old Fadama are young migrants who are economically very active. More than 80% find work within a few days of arrival, mainly in the informal sector, doing jobs such as recycling electronic waste; food vending, street hawking, head load portering (kayeyei), petty trading, and hairdressing. All the respondents in that study reported a wider range and better paid employment options compared to their places of origin. More than 77% remitted money home and this money went directly to poor and disadvantaged rural households. For some, these remittances are the only source of income. When asked how their lives had changed as a result of migration to the informal settlement, nearly half said their overall situation had “improved a lot”, 38% said it had “somewhat improved” and the rest said that it had deteriorated or remained the same. 

 

According to Amnesty International, Ghana’s laws and constitution do not provide the residents of informal settlements with adequate protection against forced evictions. They are, for all intents and purposes, illegal settlers and the metropolitan authorities can file a case against them in court as was seen in 2002 when the Accra Metropolitan Authority filed an eviction notice against the residents of Old Fadama.

 

It is well known that forced evictions do not provide long term solutions; in fact the only long term impact they seem to have is to worsen the risks of already poor and vulnerable people. Very often there are inadequate resettlement plans for residents, as happened in this case, and even when offered, the alternatives do not replace what has been lost because the sites are located at a distance from civic amenities and established business and social networks.

 

Old Fadama residents have faced a constant threat of eviction and have tried to unite against it. In 2006 and then again in 2009, two organisations, the Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP) and People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements organised a community enumeration of the residents to Old Fadama with Shack Dwellers International. This was seen as an important first step to show the civic authorities how many people lived here and what they do. It was hoped that such information would transform the attitudes of government towards informal settlements and prevent evictions. But unfortunately this has not happened.

 

By razing Old Fadama to the ground, countless poor, rural families will have lost an important source of support. It is therefore important that  informal settlements are recognised not only as a places of despair and misery, requiring social protection, but also as hives of economic activity providing services to urban areas and remittances to rural households dependent on them.

 

There is thus an urgent need to shape policy attitudes towards informal settlements away from forced evictions towards participatory relocations or rehabilitation.

 

 

Mariama Awumbila leads the Migrating out of Poverty West Africa team at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana. Priya Deshingkar is the Research Director of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.