Urban Poverty, Livelihood, and Gender: Perceptions and Experiences of Porters in Accra, Ghana Muriel Adjubi Yeboah

This paper reports the results of interviews and group dis- cussions elicited from a sample of forty males and eighty females who were working as porters in Accra, Ghana. The purpose of the paper is to generate and analyze new informa- tion about the nature and experience of poverty among this group. Porters of both sexes self-report livelihood strategies are affected by their lack of capital assets. Their perception of poverty is shaped by culturally accepted traditional beliefs regarding gender roles and gender ideologies. Further research is called for to confirm these results, but they already have implications for national and international policies that seek to address critical issues of exclusion and inequality.

Introduction

Most poverty studies in sub-Saharan Africa have focused on rural analysis, with little analysis in urban areas. Part of the reason for this urban neglect can be attributed to low urbanization rates in Africa. Globally, sub-Saharan Africa presents the lowest urbanization rate, of 40 percent, but this is pro- jected to increase to 48 percent by 2030 (UN-Habitat 2009). Recent analysis of sub-Saharan Africa’s urbanization indicates rapid urbanization rates, averaging 4.7 percent annually since the 1970s (Akinboye 2004:154). Rural– urban migration and natural population increase in urban areas are the major factors contributing to urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rural areas lack economic development; this is coupled with the removal of subsidies on agriculture inputs and increased interest rates on farming credits. These constraints on livelihoods have led to the migration of young adults into cities seeking jobs and other opportunities. Urban population growth in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with increasing pov- erty rates in cities (Rakodi and Lloyd-Jones 2002). Estimates by UN-Habitat show that about 70 percent of all urban residents in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums (UN-Habitat 2009).The urban poor experience a cash economy,

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f Po rWhat is the role of porters in the community discussed in this article?
Describe the role of gender in the porters’ lives?
How do the women’s lives as portrayed in this article differ or resemble the lives of the women we’ve encountered so far in our reading?