Ghana’s poverty level has declined to about 24.2 percent from the 51prcent recorded in 1991.
This means about 24.2 percent of Ghanaians measuring some 6.4million cannot afford to spend GHS3.60 on food a day.
The people below the poverty line were about 7milion in 2005.
Also about 8.4percent of the population live in extreme poverty.
This indicates they cannot afford to spend more than GHS2.17 on food in a day.
This is according to the Ghana Living Standard survey 6 report conducted by the Ghana Statistical service (GSS).
The report also revealed that Ghana has achieved goal one of the Millennium Development goals even before the target year of 2015.
The Goal requires that Ghana halves its poverty level by 2015.
The survey is aimed at providing information on the patterns of household consumption and expenditure, serve as the basis for the construction of a new basket for the next re-basing of the Consumer Price Index and also provide information for up-dating the country’s National Accounts.
Ghana Living Standard Survey 6 report also revealed unemployment rate in Ghana is only at 5.2%.
The report considers persons aged 15 years and above as the active working population or Ghana’s labour force.
The Ghana Living Standard Survey 6 indicates about 6.5% of the active employable population in the urban areas are unemployed while 3.9% of the rural are unemployed.
Also, more females than males are reported to be unemployed.
5.5percent of the labour force are unemployed women, while 4.8percent are men.
The Upper East region recorded the highest level of unemployment rate of 10.8% while Brong Ahafo recorded the lowest rate of 2.9%.
On the other hand about 75.4% of Ghana’s labour force is actively employed.
This in real terms, measures about 12million people.
According to the report, Ghana’s current labour force is dominated by persons between 25-44years of age.
They make up about 89.9percent of the labour force.
25.2% of the employed labour force has had no education, 57.2% have had some education to the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level, and 17.6% have education up to Secondary school level or higher.
Of the employed labour force, about 45% are employed in agriculture while 40% are employed in the service sector.
Other results shown in the report indicate that In terms of education, the school attendance rates recorded for males and females in the age group 6-11 years are very high, at 93.3 percent for males and 92.6 percent for females.
The results also show that households spend on average close to GHȼ500.00 annually on each household member attending school.
On health, about 14 percent of the population suffered from an illness or injury two weeks preceding the survey.
Of these, 66 percent consulted medical practitioners, mostly in public health facilities.
The labour force participation rate among persons 15 years and older is 82 percent for males and 77 percent for females.
The data further reveal that about 26 percent of children aged 5-17 years engage in child labour.
Again, 25 percent of children are found in hazardous work.
At the community level, over 50 percent of rural communities have a Junior High School and nearly half of these communities have electricity from the national grid.
Also, about 80 percent of rural communities have access to a mobile phone network while less than a tenth have a post office and banking services.
Overall, about half of the rural communities visited indicated that their living conditions had improved over the last ten years.
The first Ghana Living Standards Survey was conducted in 1987 followed by a series in 1988, 1991/1992, 1998/1999 and 2005/2006.
The 2012/2013 survey is the 6th in the series.
the survey collects information on, demographic characteristics of the population, education, health, household income, consumption and expenditure patterns, prices of consumer items, household agricultural production, non-farm household enterprises, household asset ownership, employment and time use (including child labour), housing and housing conditions of households and household financial services.
The GLSS6 sample was made up of 1,200 Enumeration Areas (an EA has an estimated population of between 450 and 750) and EA distribution by locality: 545 (45%) urban and 655 (55%) rural.
Data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 18,000 households (16,772, 93.2%).
By: Anim Kwaku Boadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana
