Rural out-migration from Ghana’s development zones and household food security

Abstract

ABSTRACT Food security and human migration are both major developmental issues for governments, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, scholarship on the links between rural out-migration and food insecurity remains ambiguous about migrants in their destination and lacks ample comparison with the place of origin. Using data from the nationally representative Ghana Living Standards Survey (Round 7), we employed multinomial logit functions to examine the food security status of migrants relative to their non-migrant counterparts in their rural origins across Ghana’s three development zones i.e. Coastal, Middle Belt and Northern. The results showed that compared to their respective non-migrants, whereas rural out-migrants from the Coastal and Middle Belt development zones to urban areas were significantly more likely to be severely food insecure, rural out-migrants from the Northern Development Zone were less likely to be food insecure. Increase in household size and decrease in household expenditure were both associated with an increased likelihood of being food insecure across all development zones. These empirical findings highlight the importance of the unique characteristics of different migration flows in current food security and migration discourse globally. This study shows that rural out-migration to urban centers might not necessarily ensure relatively better food security as largely anticipated if the origin of migrants is overlooked.