Internal Migration and Poverty Reduction in Ghana

This study utilizes primary data from seven (7 out of the 10) regions to assess the impact of internal migration on poverty reduction in Ghana. Internal migration is interpreted in this study as short-term coping strategies that help migrants and their dependants to achieve a basic level of consumption. The analysis show that there is a positive relationship between internal migration and poverty reduction because of the opportunities they provide in areas of short-term and flexible labour force. The study therefore recommends for policy makers to take a critical look at the phenomenon of internal migration in order to institute policies that lessen the burdens of internal migrants. There is also the need to explore avenues for enhancing the resource capabilities of current migrants and their beneficiaries as a potential strategy to diversify their remunerative options in the long term.


Introduction
Internal migration is the movement of people to rural areas in Ghana, from urban to urban, rural to urban and rural.
In another study immigration is people's geographic movement from place to place in search of better socioeconomic opportunities. Internal movement may be long or short-term in the form.
Previous studies in Ghana suggested that population structures are not only growing, but also feminizing, Rural-urban migration occurs as people within a community migrate from agriculture to the industrial sector due to lack of job opportunities, lack of sufficient healthcare and education, liquidity constraints and land marginalization. Internal migration is an old phenomenon but as it is now, focus has not been paid to it. People move at various time periods for different purposes. Energetic and resourceful people move to urban areas in their search to achieve better service conditions for themselves and their families and to learn different skills; developing new activities, seeking a career or escaping poverty and catastrophe or hunger.
Migration is a phenomenon that affects those who travel, those who remain behind, and destinations. For cultural, social and political reasons, people move, and these influence those who stay behind, those who drive, and their goals. Internal migration based on preference, voluntary and known; (Owusu et al., 2008;Hashim, 2005a For many vulnerable groups around the world migration is a critical survival strategy. While not being a cure for poverty, it has many advantages (Anh, 2003;Afsar, 2003;Nicholas et al., 2016). Ping (2003), draws attention to the huge contribution that migrant labor makes to Ghana's overall socio-economic growth.
Again, Andersson, (2002) and Anh, (2003) argue that rural-urban migration will bring many benefits to Ghana where the population density and poverty are small. Services therefore become costly and difficult to deliver in rural areas.
Studies show that internal migration has some positive impact on poverty alleviation (Castaldo et  Only a handful of studies (Duodu, 2004;Adu, 2005; Abdul-Korah, 2007) have explicitly examined the relationship between internal migration and gender deprivation, the significant domestic movement has some advantages in a real world, and whether the degree of direct effect on migration outcomes remains an open question, however.
The study of internal migration and its relationships with poverty reduction in Ghana has specifically ignored the shortcomings of migration and poverty studies, including methodological flaws; research design that affects the decision to record audio, rather than video recordings.
Again the conceptual possibilities limit the visual record, to the participants ' interaction process and their emotional behaviour. Research design is also restricted in the importance of ethnographic knowledge, and little attention is provided to the variables of poverty reduction.
There are several internal migration studies in Ghana but previous studies have ignored topics such as internal migration and how poverty can be minimized by research, special statistical interventions, important consequences, etc.
Many current studies on internal migration and poverty reduction are relatively small samples which have made it difficult to undertake adequate studies research on internal migration and poverty alleviation in Ghana The study examined the impetus of internal migration and its connection with poverty reduction in tackling this issue. The survey results hoped to help advance established knowledge (theoretical and conceptual) and discuss the relationship between internal migration and poverty reduction in developed economies like Ghana and also serves as a source of literature, because there is scant research in the field.
The findings can be used to refine / modify policies on internal migration courses and programs to foster interest in migration studies among researchers. The analysis provides discussion of the movement of internal migration and how deprivation can be minimized due to migration. The remainder of the survey arranged the following way.
Next, the research methodology, the context of the analysis, and the procedures for collecting and analyzing data, and the target orientation, were discussed.
This research is structured in the following parts: Section one consisting of theoretical history including push and pull theories, internal migration limitations and their effects on poverty reduction. Next, the research methodology, context for the analysis, and procedures for collecting and analyzing data, model specifications are discussed in Section 3. The paper ends with descriptions of the functional and theoretical results, and discusses directions for future study.

Internal Migration
The decision to migrate from rural Ghana has always been a response to a variety of factors, including economic, Internal migrants received income that can be used to acquire assets or send remittances (cash or kind) to help those members of their household left behind to better their lives (Kwankye et al., 2012;Adaawen and Owusu, 2013). This viewpoint explains in Ghana's rural-urban migration primarily internal migration. Neo-classical perspective of equilibrium argues that the ultimate impact of the mechanism is to scrap the source of motivation (incentive) for immigration and growth. Moreover, as Ravenstein (1889) proposed in his dissertation, 'Laws of Migration,' several migration researchers in Ghana conducted the theoretical 'Push-Pull' method. 'The Ravenstein argued that poor conditions in one area' pushed 'people out and pulled in better conditions in an external spot.' Consequently, the main causes of migration are cultural, still true and were demonstrated and proven in many studies. Most rural people, whose jobs and natural resources were depleted (Nabila, 1975(Nabila, , 1986Mensah-Bonsu, 2003), and faced a strong population growth (Abdulai, 1999).

Limitations of the Classical theories
Migration is advantageous according to the classical-neo-classical view, which has acquired for all, or nearly all, who are directly involved.
The area of destinations (considered to have a labour shortage) gains as immigration overcomes labour shortages; simplifies professional mobility and decreases inflationary wage-push compression. It also results in the best use of industrious resources, enhanced exports and economic growth.
Emigration in the source regions can reduce unemployment and encourage economic growth by accessing measured inputs, such as remittances and returning skills. Instead, migrants profit from higher wages and increase productivity in the capital-rich receiving regions Such hypotheses say that wage rises in the receiving areas and reductions in the sending areas, factor costs gradually are balanced, and migration between areas ceases. Fixed assumptions are another form of limitations; for example, migrant labour is similar, perfect competitiveness and labour market mobility, work prevalence in all regions and non-state intervention migration There are other theories of economic migration from labour. Nevertheless adequate frameworks were not provided to overcome the complex movement effects. The theory of general hypothesis assumes that movement between economic, political and unequal geographical units is constant. The theory of the center-periphery or conflict is too strongly deterministic; while others based on the new economics of migration the complexities of the case as a whole are not made clear by Labour migration.
The theoretical models analyzing the theories focused primarily on the advantages of migration in a given climate, but they cannot take negative externalities into consideration on the run. The physical infrastructure and public services in the receiving regions may be under pressure from a large number of internal migrants.
The integration price may be high because of the migrants ' racial, cultural and religious diversities if these diversities are in direct contrast with the resident community. If these cannot be controlled by the receiving societies, tension and conflict will emerge thereby threaten economic growth and social stability. In short, the literature offers information about how to organize private migration education to achieve the necessary goals. It also shows that previous studies explored the relationship between civil migration and the reduction of poverty on migration, perceptions (feasibility and desirability), and deliberate effects of gender migration education.
Nonetheless, none of the earlier research examined the relationship between internal migration and poverty reduction, as used in this study. It is important to use migration studies students and graduates in Ghana as future migrants to reduce the general unemployment.

Overview of the internal migration policy, infrastructure, and use context
This section describes the analytical techniques used to carry out the survey.
Research in social science has mainly provided enough knowledge or data to enable accurate analysis of circumstances, patterns and relations between variables. This survey focused on how rural areas can be built and how internal migration can lead to poverty reduction through remittance (IOM, 2005).

Research setting
The study was conducted as a destination in six regions in Ghana, namely Greater Accra, Ashanti, Southern, Brong Ahafo, Central, and Eastern, while Upper East, Upper West, Northern, and Volta regions, while rural migration may occur between Ghana cities.
For two reasons, these regions provide an exciting environment for exploring rural growth and poverty reduction. Poverty, violence, and bad governance often lead some poor people to feel they have no choice other than to move away and pursue a better life elsewhere. These people must travel and work in harsh environments, and live in unsafe and incomplete environments many vices associated housing, (Ratha et al., 2007).
Until recently, internal migration and development were seen as a separate system for policy. Ghana's goals were not to monitor people's movement into urban areas, but to incorporate every Ghanaian into the domestic labour market. The awareness that internal migration and growth are interconnected means more nuanced policy solutions are now needed to tackle the problem. The two targets are more likely to be accomplished if the guidelines on migration and growth trigger to identify the advantages and dangers of migration for the rural poor.

Research approach
The research methodology adopted for this study can be described loosely as interpretive. According to (Walsham, 1993): "Interpretive methods of study start from the premise that our perception of reality, including the purview of human behaviour, is a social edifice for human actors and that this applies equally to researchers.
"So no unprejudiced truth is found", The aversion claimed by researchers to positivist science, and replicated by others. Explanatory studies do not generalize the results of the study from a given context.
Ideally, their goal is to get a better understanding of a particular phenomenon, which can then be used to "inform other settings" (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991)

Model Specification
In an example of internal migration where the dependent variable is internal migration and poverty reduction or not reduction in poverty about domestic movement, the linear probability model depicted it as Pi = E(Y = 1 | Xi) = ß1+ ß2Xi Where X is the internal migration and Y = 1 means that poverty reduction among the family members. Let us consider the following representation of movement.
Here Zi ranges from negative finite to positive finite, P ranges between o and 1, P, is non-linearity relations to (e. I). X(i) this satisfying the z condition required for the probability model.
Here, Pi is the probability of migration reducing poverty, and it is given by equation

which is recalled below
then (1-Pi), the probability of not reducing poverty is (1-Pi), the likelihood of not migrating is estimated as follow

The Dependent variable
Poverty reduction was measured using the weight for-Anthropometric age measure which was used as the dependent variable. Children ages were measured using determined z-scores. This gave reasons for applying the Logit model.

The Independent variables
For this analysis the explanatory variables (internal migration) is migration of migrants. Payment was taken as a continuous variable, and by household, the amount earned each month.
The migrant's schooling calculated as a continuous variable, while the values 1, 2 and 3 allocated to the migrant's mother, father and non-parent. Economic equality, remittances were other control variables refund family income, housing status, migration impact, state savings, marriage, migrant age and gender.
If a migrant is noted as being the first migrant, he / she was given a value of 1 while 0 was given otherwise.
Leisurely as a continuous element, the disbursement as family income. The state of housing status is taken as a ratio of the total number of persons present in the left-behind household to the total number of rooms in the homes. Age was measured in years while gender was estimated as 1 and 0 for male and female respectively. In the household on the left to the total number of rooms in the households. Age was measured in years, and gender was estimated at 1 and 0 respectively for males and females

The Data Collection
A cross-sectional field analysis to collect data was carried out in the six areas. The pieces are Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Central, Southern. The tools of data collection were semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Talks are usually a ' key way to reach informant definitions in the field ' (Walsham, 2006). Overall, it accepted 140 semi-structured interviews with 60 people. Meeting length usually varied from 31 minutes to one hour. All meetings took place in English, and were transcribed for study One key problem experienced during fieldwork was arranging for an interview with migrants at the destinations. The selection and recruitment of appropriate and capable interviewees at the study sites was another obstacle. In both instances, informal connections helped make the connection easier.
An additional source of data was documentary evidence, consisting of information accessible to the public of wellestablished reports from migrants and the media. The secondary content enriched the primary data and allowed triangulation to validate the research findings. Where appropriate, details from the interview were cross-checked against information from the family history. In addition to structured interviews, informal conversations with individuals provided new insights.

Data analysis
The data were analysed using guidelines proposed by Corbin and Strauss (2014) for grounded theory coding. The use of triangulation methods for data processing only as known in the literature of the wider migration systems (Matavire and Brown, 2013;Urquhart, 2013). To obtain the study regression results, the data were analyzed using SPSS verse 22. Interviews were conducted with the respondents in the areas of internal migration, family members of migrants, domestic remittances, access to jobs, use of household level payments and rural growth in the six regions.

Findings
We present findings of the study using concepts like internal migration, poverty reduction, and development.

Demographic Characteristics of Internal Migrants
Females and males in the survey formed 24 percent and 76.2 percent of the 760 respondents. The ages of the respondents in the study ranged from 18 to 27 years with the small number of them being persons below 38+ years.
The respondents who were aged less than 30 years formed 64 percent while 9 percent and 28 percent were 31-45 years and above 45 years respectively.
Concerning of educational attainment, the results of the data analysis indicate that one out of eight respondents (12.5%) had primary education. It also found that 55.4 percent and 22.3 percent of them stated that they had attained secondary and tertiary levels respectively. It found that only one out every ten migrants in the study (9.9%) did not have formal education.

The Age of Respondents
The age of the respondents shows, a substantial number of the respondents fell within age ranges: 18-27 (64%), 28-37 (27%) and 49 + (9.5%) could not tell their age. Together, the three age groups constituted 74%. Those who were more than 49 years were few possibly because many of them were growing old and, therefore, did not see the need to migrant to other places in search for greener pastures and preferred to stay home than to move around after several years of waiting away from home. The age of the internal migrants who have constituted 64% of the migrants belonging to the youth who move around seriously from rural Ghana to urban areas to search for non-existing jobs. The sex of the respondents consists of internal male migrants that constituted (24%) were more than their female counterparts (76.2%). This means that the male migrants become visible to be more courageous and ready to join cities and other urban areas to promote their interest compared to their female counterparts who would only do that on marriage grounds.  for the fact most people migrated the regional capitals, due mainly to fact that the provincial capitals are peaceful Towns in Ghana conducive for investment and human settlement. Also, (16.70%) of the internal migrants could not disclose to the team where exactly they were going, and this could interpret as transit migrants who were not evident in their minds where to settle. In addition, (22%) of the internal migrants moved to the Ashanti region mainly for business and farming and also 6% moved to Western Region primarily due to oil discovery which is the second largest after Ashanti region, and (23%) of the internal migrants moved to nations' capital Accra to look for nonexisting jobs. This has aggravated pressure on social facilities in Accra and its environs because the number of people walking to Accra daily outweighs the rate at which facilities in the city increases.

Model estimates
The calculations of the multinomial model in Table 4 showed that parameter variables were statistically important and positive at 0.05 per cent, which means that a one Cedi change in the benchmark raises the probability that internal migration will be better rewarded.
This reinforced the expectations that socio-economic conditions changed for rural-urban migrants. Many of the ratings five percentages (5 per cent) were statistically relevant and negative, thereby indicating the basic parameters.
Both relevant variables have the predicted positive correlations with the dependent variables. For example, this can be interpreted as a one-unit shift in the level of income variable, raising the likelihood of educational status by 0.012.
Likewise, being of a health status reduces the risk of a disease by 0.240.    Some migrants interviewed in each of the six regions in Ghana.

Discussions
Using multinomial regression to generate results for the study and add literature to the ongoing discussion on internal migration and poverty reduction. The study shows how the social-economic relations play in reducing poverty among migrants and their families. The future effect these recent developments may have on consolidating the ever time only the advantages of internal migration and its impact on deprivation will be evident.

Contributions
This study provides several contributions to the current knowledge base on global migration and work on poverty reduction. In concrete terms, it offers insight into some of the factors that may contribute to the positive efforts to alleviate poverty.
The study further indicates that potential stakeholders are identified and innovations presented with regard to how they meet the needs of people and the secret to winning support for its invention may be interests.
Second, in the process, material actors are important, because they form how people interact with change. In the current study, the unpredictable increase in the supply of urban labour and the reduction of poverty were important challenges to address because internal migration offered a vital route that was previously inaccessible to a large inaccessible to a large the population.
Third, the success of such interventions is calculated by the cooperation of the contested interests within a network of device theory, not by the properties of the technology itself (Heeks and Stanforth, 2015). With respect to science, the study shows that internal migration helps to resolve potential frameworks deficiencies; Such as the theory of push-pull (Rogers, 2003) or the concept of migration syndrome (Davis, 1989), which appear to focus on migrationdevelopment at the cost of social structures.
The research reinforced the view that poverty reduction and rural development promotion and the dissemination of developments in technology (Harry et al., 2014;Heeks, 2013;McBride, 2003) and to promote a greater and deeper understanding and clarification of the understated dynamics between the different actors.
Finally, this study highlights the value of migration as an alternative strategy that allows for a rich accounting of the networks of diverse human and material actors around technologies that would otherwise be impossible with other system structures (Heeks, 2013)

Conclusion and future research
This research took into account the major factors responsible for internal migration and its effect on poverty reduction in Ghana. The findings show mixed outcome reported as some migrants accepted that it was correlated with positive benefits while some individual migrants had negative impacts on internal migration as some of them went home with diseases given the rapid increase in number.
Through internal change, while poverty reduction is uncommon, it is comparatively better, through evidence of a increasing number of development projects initiated by hometown organizations. In addition, the study suggests that if it is available in a way that is compatible with their welfare, possible factors for poverty reduction are more likely to join cooperation.
The study contributes to the understanding of internal migration undercurrents on issues related to poverty reduction, such as the extension of electricity to different homes, housing projects, toilet and sanitary facilities, good drinking water, small business growth, hairdressing, and tailoring in contexts, among others The analysis also confirms the importance of push-pull theories as a theoretical paradigm for researching and interpreting internal migration principles and research on poverty reduction. This paper, given the promising results, is merely an initial contribution and therefore has some shortcomings that require attention.
A notable downside of this relates to its transversal and interpretative aspect. Hopefully future research would determine the longevity of the actor-network's mobile revenue.
Potential research may use a national survey to evaluate the mobile money from Ghana and provide additional information. Such a study may employ a longitudinal research design to generate an interpretation of the detailed Another potentially fruitful avenue for future research is to investigate how mobile money has allowed greater financial inclusion and growth. The power approach (Sen, 2012) may thus provide a useful tool to assess if mobile money has improved people's wellbeing.
Eventually, future studies may use the findings of this study as a starting point for mobile money research using quantitative research designs