In the Process of Being Left Behind: Rural-Urban Migration, Precarious Work Conditions, and the Health of Neglected Populations in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Unlike international labour migration, there is a lack of substantive evidence of precarious work conditions and their associated poor health outcomes among rural-urban migrant labour workers. A lacuna that this paper attempts to fill in one of Ghana’s urban slums, Agbogbloshie. We employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. In the absence of any sampling frame, simple random sampling was used to select 113 migrant household heads, while purposive sampling was used to select 12 in-depth interviews (IDI) and (8) key informant interviews (KII). The paper leans on the Harris-Todaro (1970) model and the ecological model. We found various precarious work activities, mostly dirty, demeaning, dangerous, and unrewarding. Logistic regression was performed on whether or not the type of work undertaken by the migrants resulted in ill-health. Using motor riders as reference, it indicates that electronic waste dealers’ odds of ill-health (OR=1.0 [95%CI: 0.09–10.17]; P=1.0). Scraps dealers (OR=0.69[95%CI: 0.10–4.72]; P=0.71). Head porters (OR=0.25[95%CI: 0.22–6.97]; P=0.80. Street hawkers (OR= 0.5[95%CI: 0.03–7.45]; P=0.62). Truck pushers (0.83[95%CI: 0.05–13.63]; P=0.90). However, the association between precarious work and ill-health was insignificant across all work activities (P > 0.05). We found a slow pace in the government’s response to addressing precarious work activities. We recommend work acceleration.