Introduction

It is imperative that demographic characteristics of any population be analyzed to assist planners and policy makers to recommend sustainable goals and objectives to address developmental needs and challenges of a Municipality. This chapter deals with the various characteristics of the population which include the population size and distribution, age-sex structure, fertility, mortality and migration.

Population size and distribution

Table 2.1 reveals that the Adentan Municipal Area has a population of 78,215 as at the 2010 Housing and Population Census. Slightly more than half (50.3%) of the population are males and 49.7 percent are females, giving a sex ratio (male-female ratio) of 101.3 which is the highest in the Greater Accra Region. The age cohort 40-44 has the highest male-female sex of 123.2. Table 2.1 further shows that, 62.5 percent of the population resides in urban settlements while 37.5 percent resides in rural areas.

The total population has been grouped into different age groups from 0-14 (children population), then 15-64 (working population) and 65+ (the aged population). About two-thirds (66.2%) of the total population falls within the working population, 31.4 percent falls within the children’s population and 2.4 percent falling within the aged population. The sex structure for the Municipality shows that males (50.9%) form a slightly higher percentage of the working population than females (49.1%).

Regarding the aged population, females form more than half (55%), endorsing the fact that females have a higher life expectancy than males.

Dependency ratio

The age dependency ratio is the ratio of the dependent population (those under age 15 and 65 years and older) to the working-age population (15 to 64 years). The age dependency ratio is often used as an indicator of the economic burden the productive population must carry. The higher the ratio is, the more a potential worker is assumed to be supporting and vice-versa. From Table 2.1, the age dependency ratio for the Municipality is 51.1 percent. This means that 100 persons in the working group look after 51 persons in the dependent population. The age dependency ratio for females (52.8%) is higher than for males (49.5%).

The age dependency ratio for urban areas (51.8%) is slightly higher than that of rural areas (50.0%).

Age-sex structure

Figure 2.1 shows a pyramid for the male-female population distribution which indicates that the Municipality has a youthful population with the age cohorts 0-4 and 25-29 having the highest percentages of the population. The age-sex structure is broad based, with concentration of the population in younger ages. The pyramid also shows that fertility decline set in but is now stalling.

Fertility, Mortality and Migration

 Fertility

From Table 2.2, it is realized that Adentan Municipality has the lowest female (1.9%, 26,376 out of 1,395,208) population and the lowest number of births (2.2%, 2,060 out of 93,052) in the Greater Accra Region. However the Municipality recorded a Total Fertility Rate of 2.7, a General Fertility Rate of 87.8 and a Crude Birth Rate of 26.3 per 1,000 women which is the fifth highest Crude Birth Rate in the region

 Mortality

A number of fertility measures were derived from the census data. Children ever born and children surviving are presented in Table 2.3. It is observed that, out of the total number (45,023) of children ever born in the Municipality to female population aged 12 years and older, 91.9 percent of the children survived and 8.1 percent of them died after birth.

Crude Death Rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 populations in a given year. Table 2.4 reveals that, the total number of deaths in the Municipality was 265. The computed death rate of Adentan Municipality is 3.4 deaths per 1,000 populations which is lower than the regional average (4.3 deaths per 1,000).

Death rates are calculated for specific age groups in order to compare mortality at different ages or at the same age over time. The age specific death rate is computed as a ratio of deaths in specified age groups.

The results for Adentan Municipality are shown in Figure 2.2. A higher percentage of female deaths are recorded in the 0-4 age group. However by age 9 years, the females record the least mortality. From age 14 to age 34 years, more male deaths are observed than females, reversing between ages 34 and 44 years. Though rising, female deaths remain lower throughout the rest of the older ages than male deaths, until after age 64 years when male deaths are higher than female deaths.

 Migration

Table 2.6 indicates that the total population enumerated in the Municipality was 78,215. Out of this number, 24.1 percent were born in the Greater Accra Region while 75.9 percent was born outside the Greater Accra Region. Of those born outside the Greater Accra Region, 3.8 percent were born outside Ghana. A quarter (25.8%) and about 18 percent of those born in another region in Ghana were born in the Volta and Eastern regions respectively. Regarding those born elsewhere in Greater Accra Region, 38.8 percent has lived in the Municipality for 1-4 years while 5.2 percent has resided in the Municipality for more than 20 years.