Introduction

This Chapter gives a brief description of demographic characteristics collected during the census period for the Wa Municipality. It covers the population size and distribution, the age-sex structure, fertility, mortality, dependency ratios, rural-urban place of residence, mortality, birthplace and migratory movements, which are very important in understanding the fertility, mortality and migration, dynamics of the people.

Population Size and Distribution

Table 2.1 shows the population of the Municipality by sex, age, and locality. The Table shows that the total population of the Wa Municipality is 107,214 and forms 15.3 percent of the population of Upper West Region. The males make up 52,996(49.74%) whiles the females constitute 54,218 (50.6%) of the population of the Municipality. The sex ratio is 97.7 percent. The Table shows that at early ages there are more males than females while in the older ages there were more females than males.

For instance, the age group with the highest sex ratio (110.0) is 20-24 years and that with the lowest (62.3) is 80-84 years. The sex ratio for the age group 0-4 is 101.9% meaning that for every 100 females there are about 102 males. On the other hand, for every 100 females there are only about 64 males for age group 70-74. The most striking feature here is that the largest population belongs to age 20-24 years (14.7%).

Age dependency ratio by locality

Table 2.2 shows that the dependency ratio of Wa Municipality is 65.1, in other words for every 100 people aged 15-65 years, there are approximately 65 people depending on them for survival. Dependency ratio is less in urban localities (59.4) than in rural localities of 77.5. The age group 15-64 is the group that is theoretically expected to be economically active and it contributes to household income in one way or the other. The population in this age constitutes 64,957 (60.6%) percent of the total population.

Age-Sex Structure

Wa Municipality has a youthful population structure with a broad base which consists of a large number of the population that belong to ages 0-24 years however persons in the age group 20-24 years broaden out more. The age-sex structure is similar to those observed in developing countries. It also shows that survival rate per age are constant throughout life from age 15 or to the highest age of 85+.

Fertility, Mortality and migration

Fertility, mortality and migration are important components of population change in an area. Redistribution of the population through migration is shaped by a variety of demographic and socio-economic factors.

Fertility

Total fertility rate, general fertility rate and crude birth rate by Districts/Municipality in the Upper West Region are presented in Table 2.3. Total fertility is the average number of live births among 1,000 women in their child-bearing years (15-49). In other words, it is the average number of children a woman would bear throughout the whole of her productive years. The Table indicates that Wa Municipality has a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 3.30 as compared to the Regional figure of 3.45.

The General Fertility Rate is the number of births in a given year divided by the mid-year population of women in the age groups 15-49. The crude birth rate (CBR) is also defined as the number of births in a given year divided by the number of people in the population in the middle of that year. From the Table, the General Fertility Rate (GFR) of Wa Municipality is 82.63, which is lower than the regional GFR (97.41). It is also observed that the Crude Birth Rate of the Wa Municipality is 22.66 which is lower than the Regional crude birth rate of 23.06.

From Table 2.4 the number of children ever born per woman measures the life time and cumulative fertility performance of females in the reproductive age group 15-49 years. About 81,013 children have ever been born and 65,564 are surviving by females aged 12 years and older in the Municipality.

Table 2.4 shows that the number of children ever born increases with age and gets to highest point at age 39. Children surviving include all children (male and female) born alive by females 12 years and older who are still living. Females aged (12-14) years old have zero births. Discounting females aged 60 years and older, females aged 35-39 have highest proportion for both sexes (13.1%) with Children Ever Born (CEB) 12 percent (male 13.3% and female 13.0%). Also for children surviving the highest proportion for both sexes are (14.0%), while male (14.2%) and female (13.8%). They are followed closely by those aged 30-34 years.

Mortality

This section discusses the data gathered on mortality including deaths in households, crude death rates, causes of deaths and age-specific deaths in the Municipality. Information on mortality or death rates is essential to determining the natural increase and its effect on population growth.

Table 2.5 shows that a total of 538 deaths are accounted for in the households over the last twelve months preceding the enumeration in the Municipality. The crude death rate which is the number of deaths per 1000 of the population in a given year in the Wa Municipality is 5.02. This implies that five out of 1000 persons died over the past 12 months before the census enumeration.

Migration

Table 2.7 discusses migration as a component of population by proxy factors such as birthplace and duration of stay in residence. For the purpose of this analysis, migrants are defined as people born outside the Municipality. The total migrants in the Municipality account for 24,245 (22.6%) out of 107,214 population in the Region.

It is observed that, out of the total of migrants, 8,818 (36.4%) were born elsewhere but within the Upper West Region. Among those born in the Upper West region, but living in the Municipality, 29.2 percent had resided for 1-4 years. The percentage of those born elsewhere in another Region but living in the Municipality which is the difference between the total migrants and migrants born elsewhere in the Region is 24,926 (63.6%).

This means that most migrants born elsewhere in another Region tend to stay longer in the Municipality as compared to the proportions of those born elsewhere in the Region but living in the Municipality.