This dissertation explores the cultural and socioeconomic factors that influence adult role transitions in Ghana. Guided by a life course theoretical framework, and using a nationally representative survey (2003-2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys), I estimate accelerated failure-time (AFT) log-normal models that control for the potential effects of unobserved heterogeneity due to the possible omission of certain relevant covariates. The models reveal that when the most optimal hazard distribution function is specified in an event history model, the problem of unobserved heterogeneity becomes significantly reduced. Results from both non-parametric and parametric models suggest a convergence in marriage and parenthood timing among contemporary young women and young men in Ghana compared with their older cohort, highlighting the salience of sociocultural timing on individuals’ life course decisions. The study also utilizes qualitative data from 30 in-depth interviews conducted in Aburi in the Eastern Region of Ghana, during the summer of 2010. The qualitative approach complements the survey methods by uncovering the influential role of the religious institution, a growing sense of individualism, as well as an emerging consumerist culture on family formation decisions in Ghana. Overall, the findings from this study indicate that the spread of information technology in the rapidly globalizing world has had differential effects on two birth cohorts in Ghana. / Thesis (Ph.D, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-12-19 15:00:23.689

In the age of the risk society, when several actors at an international, national, and local level converge in order to find solutions that help mitigate the global effects of natural disasters, there is a need to study the patterns for communicating and interacting with the public that eventually feel the impact of crises. In the richer parts of the world ICTs have facilitated a framework for having instant information regarding threats that make crisis management a discipline that is centered more in preparing and planning, rather than mitigating actual crises.  In developing countries, the contextual idiosyncrasies of each nation provide a fragmented array of settings that prevents a rapid flow of information in the event of natural disasters. The phenomenal growth of mobile telephony use and its rapid diffusion in developing countries offers a game changing scenario where crisis managers could benefit from new applications and functionalities of mobile devices. In a confluence of multidisciplinary nature, this study aims to explore the role of mobile technology and internet in crisis management, as well as the state of accessibility of mobile technology when addressing the general public in Ghana. This study follows a three-pronged approach with the aim of answering its research questions. First, a qualitative study of the communication processes between crisis managers and the public and the role of mobile technologies during those processes. Second, a quantitative study of the uses of mobile internet and the current mobile internet infrastructure. Finally, a study on the accessibility level of Ghana’s national crisis management organization’s website. Several conclusions can be drawn from this study. Mobile technologies have an important role in the communication process of crisis managers and the public, however the use of internet still has no part in the flows of communication due to deficits in infrastructure and socio-economic factors, leading to a disconnection between international risk policy requirements and local needs. The lack of resources is seen as the biggest challenge for crisis managers; a challenge that leads to issues of trust in the public and non-compliance. Finally, while there have been improvements in accessibility efforts, there is still a wide gap between international web accessibility best practices and the one provided by authorities in Ghana.

It has been widely acknowledged that high socioeconomic status provides better living conditions and vice versa. This study examines the impact of parents’ income and educational attainment on their children’s years of schooling in Ghana by utilizing the Ghana Living Standards Survey 2012/2013 which provides detailed information on respondents at the household level. Pearson correlation analysis showed a positive association between parental income, father’s and mother’s educational attainment with the child’s years of schooling. The positive correlation was further confirmed through multiple regression analysis which revealed a significant relationship between parental educational level and child’s years of schooling. It was observed that father’s educational attainment is a stronger predictor of a child’s years of schooling at the basic level compared to mothers. At the secondary and higher educational levels, both parents’ educational attainments are significant with father’s being the stronger predictor of male child years of schooling and mother’s for females. The resources of parents also influence the years of schooling of the children. Household size and place of residence were also shown to have significant influences on years of schooling. Larger household size meant shorter years of schooling for the child and smaller household size meant longer years of schooling, all things being equal. Children living in the rural areas have less years of schooling compared to children residing in urban areas. We conclude that parents’ educational and income levels are factors that determine the unequal opportunities among children as these resources are transferred from parents to children.

The market for electrical devices still continues to increase all over the world and as a consequence the quantity of waste in the category of electronics rises. A huge proportion of the electronic waste is exported from the industrial countries to developing countries, in order to save costs, and also because of too few recycling plants in industrial countries. The significant environmental and social problem in this context is that the electronic devices are mostly recycled in informal plants. Thereby the burden for the people as well as the environment increases because e-waste includes a lot of toxic substances. The negative impacts are already obvious in countries of importation. This paper will illustrate this on the basis of the case study in Ghana in Africa. The problem is evident, and research, business as well as governments aim to counter this development. The paper will investigate the current approaches employed for solving the e-waste problem with respect to legal options and also regarding voluntary agreements and the provision of information about the actual situation to the consumers.

The study explores lay conceptualizations of mental illness among the Akans of Ghana as influenced by their cultural worldview. Akan, the largest ethnic group in Ghana, is noted for the use of supernatural attributions for various health-related issues. The supernatural attributions are based on Akan ontological belief that the universe is unitary such that there is no clear distinction between physical and spiritual occurrences. This worldview guides Akans in how they deal with a wide range of issues including their mental health. Clinicians and other mental health professionals who rely solely on biomedical approaches to mental health fail to meet the demands of Akan mental health help-seekers because such approaches do not recognize the cultural factors that inform lay understandings on mental illness. Limited studies have been conducted on how Akan supernatural attributions influence conceptualizations of mental illness. Using a grounded theory method of research, 14 individual interviews and 7 focus group interviews were conducted to explore beliefs and knowledge about mental illness in two indigenous Akan communities in Ghana. Participants were of diverse age, sex, education, and occupational background. Analysis revealed that cultural factors influence lay conceptions, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. Local labels for mental illness as well as beliefs about etiology, development, and cure of mental illness were identified. It was found that the Akan unitary worldview aids in the endorsement of heterogeneous multi-tier causal attributions of mental illness that embrace supernatural and non-supernatural causal explanations. Although supernatural causality theories of mental illness existed, participants related a complex causal explanation that involved other non-supernatural causal attributions. Results further revealed that Akan cultural beliefs influence community response to mental illness, encouraging pluralistic help-seeking behaviors that satisfy the Akan cultural value for holistic treatment and care. The implications of the findings for clinical training, culturally-sensitive mental health practice, and mental health education and advocacy have been discussed.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / Women represent approximately 50 percent of the active labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even though women are involved in a variety of agricultural activities, they have limited access to resources and have restricted decision-making power compared to their male counterparts (FAO, 2011). These limitations and restrictions are likely to have a significant effect on women’s performance levels compared to men. The present research measures the gender-based performance differences, identifies factors that influence the financial performance levels, and factors contributing to generate disparities between male and female smallholders performance in northern Ghana. Data used in this study are from the Agriculture Production Survey (APS) focusing on the 2013-2014 cropping season. The study uses the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to measure and decompose the gender performance gap in two parts: endowment effect and structural effect. Gross margin is used to measure farmer’s financial performance. The endowment effect is attributed to differences in the explanatory variables, and the structural effect is associated with differences in returns of the explanatory variables. Results from the study indicate there is a gender gap between male and female smallholder farmers with male farmers outperforming females by 46 percent. Land area had the largest significant impact on the explained part of the gender gap, followed by tractor service. The endowment effect portion of the decomposition models is accounted for 35 percent of the gender gap, and the remaining 65 percent is associated with the structural effect. The larger structural effect part suggests that developing programs to establish equality among male and female smallholder producers in terms of access to resources will not close the gender gap. Additionally, factors contributing positively overall to gross margin of smallholder farmers were land area, and tractor services and crops produced. Based on the results of this research, policymakers and agribusiness stakeholders may look to reduce the gender gap existing between smallholder farmers in northern Ghana by empowering women by providing them access to land area and tractor services. Further research into factors affecting the gender gap in financial performance in agricultural activities is warranted.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The generation of large volumes of solid and liquid wastes in urban and periurban areas of Ghana is a big problem for the people and government of Ghana. It contributes to the outbreak of many diseases in the country such as malaria, diarrhoea and typhoid fever. In managing the situation, a new concept called ecological sanitation (ecosan), which focuses on reuse of waste, has been introduced in the country. The objectives of the thesis were to criticise the environmental sanitation policy by analysing its content in relation to policy implementation arrangements, to discuss programmes and projects identified under the policy, to critically examine the implementation of an ecosan project as a way of achieving the goal and objectives by outlining its implementation processes, prospects and challenges, and to make appropriate recommendations. The analysis and discussion of the thesis were based on both primary and secondary data. The primary data, on one hand, were collected on the prospects and challenges that exist in the implementation of ecosan projects from Kumasi metropolis. The secondary data, on the other hand, were from books, journals and websites. From the research analysis, it emerged that the policy allows the implementation of many sanitation projects including ecosan. Secondly, stakeholders see ecosanto be a good approach to reduce waste generation in the country. However, the main challenges that exist in promoting the concept are inadequate financial support, unavailability of implementation guidelines and lack of knowledge about concept details. It is therefore argued that financial support, implementation guidelines and awareness-creation activities should be available in the implementation of ecosan in the metropolis. Government, private organisations, companies and individuals should each contribute their quota in the support and processes. / South Africa

Data from various sources indicate that the world’s population is aging and doing so at an unprecedented way. Global population figure of people aged 60 years and over have doubled since the 1980s. While these figures are indications of reduced fertility rate, improved life style, advanced medical technologies, there is also the school of thought that aging population pose as a challenge to the fiscal and macroeconomic stability of many countries. There is also another school of thought that argues that aged population also constitute an important part of the labour force or the labour market that have not been given much attention. Because people are living longer, older people are postponing retirement, hence, transitioning into bridge employment or grey entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study aims to develop understanding of how aging health workers transition to post-retirement work, in a comparative study. To answer this aim, a qualitative study was designed with the intention of developing a great understanding of the intensions and aspirations of health workers on their post-retirement career. Participants in this study were aging doctors and nurses in Sweden and Ghana. Data collection was done through the use of semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions with ten doctors and nurses each in Ghana and Sweden. The results show that almost all the respondents expressed the desire for a post-retirement career. We found that while every doctor in Sweden has the chance to participate in career bridge employment, it was only the specialized doctors that are more likely to have the chance to participate in career bridge employment in Ghana. However, almost all the respondents, except doctors in Sweden, expressed the desire for grey entrepreneurship, some have actually started their small businesses, for instance, one doctor owns and runs a non-governmental health delivery organization that delivers free health services to people in rural areas and in his community. To conclude, this study has shown that the desire and willingness of a post-retirement career especially in Ghana is influenced mostly by familial and economic factors, while personal factors explain that for Swedish doctors and nurses.

ABSTRACT: Background: Malaria is endemic throughout Ghana and continues to be a major public health concern especially among pregnant women and children under the age of five. The Ministry of Health (MoH) estimates that over the past ten years, there have been 2-3 million cases of malaria each year, representing 40 percent of outpatient cases, while severe malaria accounts for 33-36 percent of in-patients. Malaria also accounts for 25 percent of the deaths in children under the age of five (GHS, 2001). Correct identification of risk factors could focus interventions at reducing malaria mortality in children. Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) sites have been established and they generate high quality population based longitudinal health and demographic data. The DSS conduct Verbal Autopsies to determine probable causes of death. Objective: This study examines factors affecting childhood malaria mortality in Northern Ghana, using longitudinal data collected by the Navrongo DSS during the period 1995- 2000. It deals especially with the role of socioeconomic factors (mother’s education, family wealth index based on the possessions and housing characteristics and residence, and possession of bed net) and the demographic characteristics (child’s sex and age, and mother’s age). Design: Secondary data analysis of longitudinal data collected by the Navrongo Health Research Centre. Multinomial logistic regression was used to compare the relative risk in three groups of children i.e. those who died of Malaria and those who died of other causes to those who survived as base. Results: Overall, for the deaths due to malaria, older children (1-5years) had a higher risk (RRR 1.4, 95%CI 1.25-1.57 P <0.0001) of dying compared to the infants. Equally, children born of older mothers (maternal age at birth of child >30 years) had a higher risk (RRR 1.28, 95%CI 1.15-1.42 P <0.0001). However, maternal education and residence had a protective effect, with children born of mothers who had some education (RRR 0.79, 95%CI 0.67-0.93 P=0.004) and residing in urban area (RRR 0.61, 95%CI 0.46-0.82 P=0.001) having a lower risk. Similarly, those children whose families are in the highest wealth index had a lower risk (RRR 0.76, 95%CI 0.63-0.91 P=0.003). Interestingly, the same factors were associated with deaths occurring due to other causes, but with varying degree of association. Whereas sex of child was not associated with malaria deaths, being female offered a lower risk of dying from other causes (RRR 0.9, 95%CI 0.84-0.98 P=0.017). It was observed that children in the older age group (1-5 years) were at higher risk of dying (RRR 1.14, 95%CI 1.05-1.25 P=0.002) just as those born of older mothers (RRR 1.16, 95%CI 1.07-1.26 P <0.0001). Even in this group, maternal education (RRR 0.87, 95%CI 0.76-0.98 P=0.023), a higher wealth index (RR 0.87, 95%CI 0.77-0.99 P=0.032 and RRR 0.63 95%CI 0.54-0.73 P <0.0001 for the two highest categories of wealth indices respectively), and area of residence (RRR 0.67, 95%CI 0.55-0.83 P <0.0001) offered a reduction in the risk of dying. Conclusion: The study identified the risk factors (age and sex of the child and mother’s age, maternal education, wealth and residence of the family) associated with malaria mortality and other causes of death in childhood in northern Ghana and this should help formulate cost effective interventions such as health education.

The past decade's globalisation has become an increasingly important topic in international business. Firms, therefore, search for business opportunities in new markets, where the aim is to increase revenue. However, many of the world’s developed economies are becoming more saturated, which leads to firms looking for opportunities in emerging countries. Recent studies and statistics indicate that the West-African region is developing thus leading to increased buying power and population growth. The purpose of this thesis is to research how firms can exploit opportunities which derive from the development in the West-African market, and sub-sequentially how the risks are managed. This study is conducted with a qualitative research method with an abductive approach based on eight MNC’s with experience from Ghana and Nigeria. Due to the lack of previous research on especially how firms exploit opportunities, it was key for the authors to go back and forth between empirical findings and the literature review to achieve a holistic view of the topic and find gaps in the existing literature. The authors further have created a conceptual framework based on previous literature which provided themes combined with the operationalisation to answer the research questions. The analysis discusses the existing literature combined with the empirical findings and the authors’ thoughts in the context of West-Africa. Lastly, a concluding chapter with results, theoretical- and practical implications, limitations, societal contribution and suggestion for further research is presented. The result of the thesis has provided further knowledge of how firms exploit opportunities and manage risks as well as how important the network is for firms entering West-Africa. The most significant finding shows that a firm needs to access the correct network upon entering Ghana and Nigeria in order to exploit any opportunity. The authors suggest that managers need to access the correct network via an agent providing them with local specific knowledge to overcome a lack of knowledge and initial risks. Further building upon the initial agents’ network will enable them to explore further opportunities within the West-African region.