Introduction

This chapter presents a description of economic characteristics of the Kwahu Afram Plains North district. This includes the economic activity status, occupation, industry, employment status and sector in the District.

Economic characteristics describe the living conditions in a particular area. Whether people are subsistence farmers, salaried workers, or self-employed entrepreneurs, they derive most of their income from work.

This basic fact means that the level of employment, the quality of jobs, and the access which individuals have to decent earnings opportunities is a crucial determinant of development. The intuition that jobs matter for development has not been lost on the governments of low income countries and the vast majority of national development strategies look to employment generation as a major channel for poverty reduction (Hull, 2009).

 Economic Activity Status

Table 4.1 provides information on the activity status of population 15 years and older by sex and age in the Kwahu Afram Plain North.  It is shown that out of 56,839 working population were enumerated 85.7 percent were economically active and 14.3 percent are not economically active. Out of the population who are economically active 98.4 percent are employed.

In terms of sex, males who are in economically active is 82.9 percent as compared to 80.4 percent of their female counterparts. Of the economically active 98.7 percent of males and 98.4 percent of females are employed.

Table 4.1:  Activity status of population 15 years and older by sex

Table 4.2 provides information on the population of persons aged 15 years and older by sex, age and activity status. From the table, 59.6 percent of persons aged 15-19 years are employed, 1.3 percent unemployed and 39.1 percent being economically not active in the district.

It can also be seen from the table that for those aged 35-39 years, as high as 95.3 percent are employed as against just 0.7 percent unemployed which is expected because at this age most people are expected to be working. Exactly 4.0 percent are economically not active

With respect to gender the Table indicates that 85.8 percent males are employed, with the highest being those aged 40-44 years (97.5%). With regards to unemployment 2.6 percent of males aged 25-29 years are unemployed whilst for those being economically not active, males aged 15-19 years recorded 37.5 percent in the district which is expected because either these persons are in school or learning a trade.

The tables indicates that 82.8 percent females are employed, 1.4 percent unemployed and 15.7 percent economically not active. According to the table 95.6 percent of females aged 4549 years, are employed, for those 20-24 years 3.5 percent are unemployed and for females aged15-19 years 41.2 percent are economically not active in the district

Economic Characteristics

There are 85.7 percent economically active and 14.3 percent is economically not active persons in the District. About 99 percent (98.6) of the economically active male population (25,627) is employed compared to 1.4 percent unemployed. The female economically active employed population is 98.3 percent compared to 1.7 percent unemployed.

Majority of the economically active population are skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (70.6%). About 15 percent (14.6%) are craft and related trade workers. The proportion of the male population engaged as agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (82.1%) is higher compared to females (57.7%). The proportion of females (24.6%) engaged in craft and related trade work is higher than males (5.6%).

About 70.0 percent (69.4%) of the employed population is engaged in the agriculture, forestry and fishery industries, 10.3 percent is employed in the manufacturing industry and10 percent is employed in the wholesale and retail and motor repairs industries.