The Municipality has a youthful population with the 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 age groups exhibiting the highest proportions of 13.9 percent 13.2 percent and 11.1 percent respectively as compared with less than 2 percent among the 60+ age groups. It is also observed that males and females aged 0-4 years constitute 14.2 percent and 13.8 percent respectively. The proportion of males aged 5-9 is 14.0 percent as compared with 13.8 percent of the females in the same age group.

Table 2.2 shows that, out of the total population of 139,200, 49,825 representing 35.8 percent reside in the urban areas whilst 89,375 (64.2%) live in the rural areas. Nearly 52 percent of the females and 48.5 percent of the male reside in the urban areas. The table also shows the sex ratio (number of males per 100 females) for the Municipality. The sex ratio for the Municipality is 100.4 male per 100 females, which is higher compared to the regional sex ratio of 100.0. The Municipality sex ratios show that there is predominance of males. The sex ratio in the rural areas is higher (104.1) than that of the urban areas (94.2) and also the general sex ratio of the Municipality.

Age-Sex Structure

The age structure of the country’s population is basically shaped by the effects of high fertility and decreasing mortality rate.Figure 2.1 shows the population pyramid of SefwiWiawso Municipality. The broad base of the pyramid shows that the Municipalityhas a youthful populationconsisting of a large proportion of children under 15 years and a small proportion of the elderly (65 years and older) as depicted by narrowing top of the pyramid. A similar pattern is observed forboth sexes with slight variations.

Age dependency ratio

Table 2.3 shows the age dependency ratio of the Municipality. The ratio is used to measure the burden borne by those who are “working-age population” (i.e. those in ages 15-64 years) and those aged below 15 years and 65 years and older. The table indicates that population aged 15-64 represent more than half (55.1%) of the total population as compared with 3.7 percent of the 65+ year-olds and 41.2 percent those aged less than 15 years. Child dependency ratio is the highest (74.8) as compared with adult dependency of 6.8. This means that, for every 100 people in the working ages, there are 75 children and 7 adults who dependent on them.

The table further shows that, the age dependency ratio of males is higher (82.79) than that of the females (80.27). Child dependency is also higher among the males (76.33) than females (73.21). However old age dependency is higher for females (7.6) than males (6.45).Overall the total dependency is 81.5.

Fertility, Mortality and Migration

Migration, Fertility and Mortality are the three main factors that affect the composition and size of the population.

Fertility

Fertility rates affect the development of an area. In developing countries, lower fertility rates are more beneficial to families and the community.

Table 2.4 shows that in the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipality, 41,611 (29.9%) of the population are females aged 15-49 years with a total fertility rate of 3.7. This means that on the average a female aged 15-49 years will give birth to about 4 children by the end of her reproductive years, if she were to conform to current age-specific fertility rates, this rate is above the regional level TFR of 3.6 and the national level TFR of 3.3.

In the last twelve months, 3,760 children were born in the Municipality. The general fertility rate of 90.4 per 1,000 females is slightly higher than the regional average of 89.2. GFR is the number of births in a given year divided by the mid-year population of women in the age groups 15-49. GFR of 90.4 means that about 90 children are born to a 1,000 women in a year. The crude birth rate (CBR) which is the number of birth per 1,000 population puts the CBR of the Municipality at 27.0, which is slightly lower than the regional average of 27.2.

There should be policy interventions in the Municipality to reduce the level of fertility, especially effective implementation of the family planning programs in the Municipality is highly recommended.

Table 2.5shows the population 12 years and older and the number of births they gave and the number surviving.  The data shows that the population of females 12 years and olderis 46,412. The table indicates that, 109,470 children have beenborn to femalesaged 12 years and older and outof this, 98,695 are the children aresurviving. The tablefurther revealsthat, out of the total number of females aged 12 years and older, the number of females in ages 20-24 is the highest whilst the lowest is forages 55-59.

The table also indicates that, more females (54,980) than males (54,490),are bornwith more females (49,826) surviving than males (48,869). Females aged12-14 years have the least number (27) ofchildren ever born, whiles more children were bornto women aged25-54years.This could be attributed to the fact that most of the women aged 12-14 years could be schooling or in apprenticeship and therefore would not have begun childbearing as much as those in the older ages. It could be observed from Table2.5,that more females than malessurvive in all age groups, except for females aged 35.

Mortality

Mortality refers to deaths that occur within a population. The probability of dying during a given time period is linked to many factors, such as age, sex, occupation, and economic status. The incidence of death can reveal much about a population’s standard of living and health care.

Mortality refers to all deaths that occurred in the household during the 12 months preceding the Census Night. Mortality, as one of the three components of population growth, plays an important role in determining the growth of a population.

The crude death rate can be particularly affected by age structure. Death rates are calculated for specific age groups in order to compare mortality at different ages or at the same age over time.

The death rate (also called the crude death rate) is the number of deaths per 1,000 population in a given year.

From table 2.6, there are 890 household deaths in the Municipality with death rate of 6.4 deaths per 1000 live births. Wassa East (11.4) and Jomoro (9.7) are among the districts with the highest death rates in the region.

Age specific death rate

The reported age specific death rate by sex is presented in Figure 2.2. Generally, mortality is high at birth for earlier ages of life, reduces sharply from age 0-4 to 5-9 years and remain low for ages 10-14 years and start to increase for older ages.

From under 5 and age 5-9, death rate among the females is higher than for the males. The age groups 15-44 are the age groups where the death rate among the female is higher than the male and this may be the results of maternal mortality. However from age 55 years, death rates for males increase sharply and remain high for all older ages than their female counterparts.