Strangers in a strange land: mapping household and neighbourhood associations with wellbeing outcomes in Accra, Ghana
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Urban poverty is not limited to informal settlements, rather it extends throughout cities, with the poor and affluent often living in close proximity. Using a novel dataset derived from the full Ghanaian Census, we investigate how neighbourhood versus household socio-economic status (SES) relates to a set of household development outcomes (related to housing quality, energy, water and sanitation, and information technology) in Accra, Ghana. We then assess “stranger” households' outcomes within neighbourhoods: do poor households fare better in affluent neighbourhoods, and are affluent households negatively impacted by being in poor neighbourhoods? Through a simple generalized linear model we estimate the variance components associated with household and neighbourhood status for our outcome measures. Household SES is more closely associated with 13 of the 16 outcomes assessed compared to the neighbourhood average SES. For 9 outcomes poor households in affluent areas fair better, and the affluent in poor areas are worse off. For two outcomes, poor households have worse outcomes in affluent areas, and the affluent have better outcomes in poor areas, on average. For three outcomes “stranger” households do worse in strange neighbourhoods. We discuss implications for mixed development and how to direct resources through households versus location-based targets.
Date Issued
2023-12
Date Acceptance
2023-09-21
Citation
Cities, 2023, 143
ISSN
0264-2751
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Cities
Volume
143
Copyright Statement
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275123003967
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
104584
Date Publish Online
2023-09-28