Introduction

It is important that the size, composition and distribution of any population be analyzed to facilitate development planning and implementation of policies. The current decentralized governance system and administration in Ghana require that statistics are provided on the size, composition and distribution of the population at the Metropolitan, Municipal and district levels to facilitate planning. This chapter presents results on population size, composition, age-sex structure, nationality, birth place, ethnicity, fertility, mortality and migration on the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality.

Population Size and Distribution

Table 2.1 shows the population of the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality by age, sex and sex ratio. The total population of the Municipality in 2010 was 183,528 with females constituting 52.7 percent while males formed 47.3 percent (Table 2.1).

The age distribution of the population shows that the population peaked at age group 20-24, representing 11 percent followed by 25-29 age group constituting10.9percent. Apart from the age groups 0-4 and 5-9 where males were more than females, female dominance was reflected in all age groups of the population. With regards to sex ratio, for every 100 females, there were about 90 males within the Municipality. The sex ratio of the Municipality is lower than that of the region (93.6) and the country (95.2) (GSS, 2012a; 2012b). This could be attributed to male out-migration from the Municipality or male mortality being higher than that of females.

Table 2.2 shows the dependent populations, that is, age group 0-14 (Children)and 65 and above (Elderly) and the working population(15-64), and also the total dependency ratio (ratio of persons in the dependent ages to those in the economically productive ages in a population). From table 2.2 below, half of the dependent populations (0-14 and 65+) depend on the working population in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality. However, the total dependency ratio of the Municipality was lower (50.1) than the regional ratio of 53.4, implying that there were fewer non-working people being looked after by the working population in the Municipality than at the region. Also, the results show that, child (0-14 years) dependency ratio was 48.5 and old age (65 years and older) dependency ratio was 3.6.

Age Sex Structure

The pyramid in Figure 2.3 shows the age and sex structure of the population of La Dade-Kotopon Municipality in 2010. The age structure shows a youthful population, which is characteristic of most developing countries. The pyramid however does not follow the expected pattern of reducing with advancing age. The people in the age group 20-24 and 25-29 were relatively more than expected and this could be attributed to the influx of migrants, particularly females into the Municipality, perhaps for employment purposes. In general, there were more females than males in all the age groups, which conform to other districts in the region. This is consistent with the fact that females constituted more than half of the total population of Ghana (GSS, 2012a).

Fertility, Mortality and Migration

Introduction

The 2010 census collected data on fertility, mortality and migration, which are the three components of population change. Data collected on fertility were total fertility, general fertility, crude birth rate, children ever-born, children surviving and sex of child. Mortality data collected were deaths in households and crude death rate while data on migration covered place of birth, duration of stay in residence, emigration and nationality. The levels and changes of the three components of population are important indicators for the interplay of demographic, economic, socio-cultural, environmental and political factors. It is also important for planning and policy making in the decentralized system of governance in Ghana. This section describes results on data collected on fertility, mortality and migration in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality.

Fertility

Information on fertility is key in analyzing the growth of a country’s population. Some definitions on fertility were proposed in the 2010 census. Lifetime fertility was defined as the total number of live births that females 12 years and older had ever had during their life time while current fertility refers to the number of live births that females 12-54 years and old had in the 12 months preceding the Census Night. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was defined as the total number of births a woman would have by the end of her childbearing period if she were to pass through those years bearing children at the currently observed age-specific fertility

rates. General Fertility Rate (GFR) was given as the number of live births occurring during a specified period per 1,000 women aged between 15-49 while, Crude Birth Rate (CBR) was defined as the number of births per 1,000 population during a specified period. Women were asked some questions to determine the total number of live births they had in their lifetime, children surviving and births in the past 12 months. Data collected include that of females 12-14 years, which is below the recommended age-specific fertility range of 15-19 years usually used in computing adolescent fertility.

Table 2.3 reveals that the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality had the lowest TFR of 2.0 in the region, which was lower than the regional average of 2.6. Also, both the GFR and CBR of the Municipality (GFR=61.0 and CBR=18.9) were lower than that of the regional GFR of 75.7 and the CBR of 22.7. The low levels of TFR, GFR and CBR in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality might be due to the use of contraceptives among females to prevent pregnancy, out-migration of males or increased male mortality.

Information on children ever born and children surviving are presented in Table 2.4. It is observed that, out of the total number of 122,358 children ever born to the female population 12 years and older in the Municipality, about 90.0 percent survived, which means that 10.0 percent of the children died. In general, the number of children surviving was less than children ever born. There was an increasing pattern of the number of children ever born and children surviving from age groups 12-14 to 40-44.

Mortality

In the 2010 PHC, mortality was defined as all deaths that occurred in a household during the 12 months preceding the Census Night. It measured mortality rates on the responses to questions on “births and deaths in the last 12 months”. The Municipality recorded 807 deaths in the last 12 months preceding the 2010 PHC (Table 2.5).

Death in households in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality was the fifth highest mortality cases among the districts in the region. The table shows that the Municipality had a crude death rate of 4.4 per 1000 population, which is slightly higher than the regional average of 4.3 per 1000 population.

Migration

Migration may be defined as a spatial movement involving a temporary or permanent change in one’s usual place of residence from one geographical area to the other within a specified period of time (Tanle, 2010). In this section, migration is measured with respect to birthplace and duration of residence as shown in Table 2.6.

Out of the total population of 183,528 in the Municipality, 40.0 percent (73,423) were migrants born elsewhere in the Greater Accra Region or other regions in Ghana or outside Ghana. It is observed that persons born outside the Greater Accra region but resident in the Municipality were mostly from the Eastern Region, constituting 27.4 percent (17,789) while those from the Upper West region were the least (1.8 percent) (1,174).

Table 2.6 also indicates that13 percent of the migrants had resided in the Municipality for less than one year, 26.0 percent had stayed between 1-4 years while 21.0 percent had stayed over 20 years.

Figure 2.3 shows reported age-specific death rates by sex. The rates among females were higher than those of males among the age groups 35-50 years, a possible indication of relatively high maternal mortality in the Municipality. However, the age-specific death rates for females was relatively lower than that for males in age groups 55-70+ years but the age-specific death rate for age groups 0-24 years was approximately the same for both sexes. The estimated mortality pattern exhibited in Figure 2.3 is similar to patterns observed in other districts in the region.