Content area
Abstract
The study stems from the need to identify some of the salient features of the migration of women. There has been growing evidence of the increasing importance of the migration of women to cities and other large urban areas in Africa and Southeast Asia. This phenomenon, unlike the case in Latin America, has been described as largely associational migration, and that the pattern is predicated on the patterns of male migration. Recent evidence of significant number of autonomous female migrants has called to question the basis of the above speculation and hence the need to examine more closely what factors motivate women to move.
In trying to address this issue, we have attempted to describe and analyze the patterns of sex differences in internal migration in Ghana. We have focused specifically on some of the basic correlates of female migration; marital status and labor force participation. The main source of data has been the 1971 Supplementary Enquiry of Ghana.
The study utilizes an inferential model based on the Thadani-Todaro interactional framework to analyze the determinants of female migration. The multivariate analysis, however, is based on a modified version of the Proportional Hazrd Model developed by Preston.
The study reveals that no single factor can be used to characterize the migration of women. For men, it is evident that the single most important factor is economic. For women, a gamut of social and economic conditions influence their migration, with the relative importance of the factors being determined, by and large, by the degree of economic independence they possess in the society. In Ghana, the economic independence that women possess, coupled with increasing education have been responsible for the increase in the volume of female migration. It was observed that even among associational female migrants economic considerations were important.
The study concludes that the process of family vs individual male-female migration may be a whole new response to changing economic and social conditions in both areas of origin and destination. However, it is evident from the analysis that the interrelations are so complex that in fact it is very difficult to get a precise measure of the actual role of economic factors in the migration of women.
