Ghana’s Economics, Politics and Population

Introduction: The Republic of Ghana is a relatively small country, the 32^nd largest African Country (238,535km²) representing approximately 10% of the size of Algeria (2,381,741km²) and has a population of 28.83 million people (World Bank 2017) with an average population increase of 2.26% over the last 4 years (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2017). With a current GDP per capita of $1641.5 Ghana is easily classified as a low-income country despite an almost 1000% increase since the 1950s (World Bank 2017). However, it is only over the last couple of decades in which there has been significant increases in GDP per capita with regular fluctuations in its growth occurring from the mid to late 20^th century.

This figure shows the peaks and troughs of Ghana’s GDP per capita growth with the biggest decline coming in 1975 with a 15% decrease. This was strongly related to the reduction in cocoa production from the 1960s to 1980s, reducing export revenue and GDP over this period, a period in which, Ghana’s cocoa world market share slumped from one third to one eighth (US Library Of Congress). The peak with regards to GDP growth for Ghana was very much between 2010 and 2011 with the industry sector the main contributor to this rise with a greater than 30% increase in GDP (Ghana Statistical Service (GSS)).

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Inequality and Growth: The Gini Coefficient suggests that income inequality in Ghana has worsened since the 1990s with the coefficient increasing from 36% to 42.4$ (0.36 to 0.424) over the last 28 years (HDI 2018). This is reflected in the income share of the top 10% and bottom 10% of the population. The richest 10% have seen an income share increase of 5% between 1986-2012 whereas the poorest 10% lost 0.8% of their share over this time leaving them with only 2% of total income (Index Mundi). Compared to other African countries Ghana does not perform too badly with regards to income inequality as this map shows, it is well below the inequality of South-Africa and Botswana. However, regionally Ghana does not perform so well with its surrounding nations such as Mali and Niger having more income equality. Over the same period at which income inequality in Ghana has worsened, Ghana’s GDP has increased significantly, perhaps indicating that income inequality may be good for economic growth in the short term if the select few wealthy invest into the Ghanaian economy and stimulate development. Other indicators of inequality such as education enrolment show progress for Ghana with 100% of children enrolled in primary education from 2008 onwards, a 28% increase from 1990, with enrolment secondary education also tripling over this period (World Bank 2018). This will benefit Ghana in the future by increasing the skills of their workforce, however, due to their high percentage of exports in labour intensive sectors such as mining, these students may move abroad after obtaining their education in the search for higher skilled labour. As well as this, despite the decreasing student: teacher ratio since the late 1990s, the quality of teaching in Ghana is often scrutinised with the World Bank estimating that under 50% of the children population will be productive in the future.