Cities and Rural Transformation

Abstract The chapter focuses on answering four broad questions relevant to economic transformation in Ghana. First, are patterns of rural employment changing with urbanization and do these changes have any spatial patterns that are associated with proximity to cities of different sizes? Secondly, what are the impacts of rural transformation on the youth in the rural areas? Thirdly, what are the impacts of urbanization on agricultural intensification for youth and non-youth? Finally, what are the welfare or income implications of the rural transformation that has created heterogeneous livelihood opportunities? Proximity to cities has a strong effect on the exit of rural households from agriculture, and this trend is stronger with increases in the size of the city. Only when considering youth-headed rural households, do they become more likely to exit agriculture everywhere including in northern districts with small cities. Technological adoption is higher among youth in the more urbanized areas. Rural poverty rates appear consistently lower among non-agricultural households.