HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS AND
2.1 H OUSEHOLD C HARACTERISTICS
Access to basic utilities, sources of drinking water, and water treatment practices; access to sanitation facilities, housing structure; crowdedness of dwelling spaces; and type of fuel used for cooking are physical characteristics of a household that are used to assess the general well-being and socioeconomic status of household members. Millennium Development Goal 7 (MDG 7), which focuses on environmental sustainability, is measured according to the percentage of the population using solid fuels, those with sustainable access to an improved water source, and the proportion with access to improved sanitation. This section provides information from the 2014 GDHS on household drinking water, household sanitation facilities, hand-washing practices, housing characteristics, and availability of basic amenities and utilities.
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Key Findings:
• Six in 10 households in Ghana have access to an improved source of drinking water, including a piped source within the dwelling, yard, or plot; a public tap, standpipe, tube well, or borehole; a hand pump, protected well, or protected spring; and rainwater. Three in 10 households use bottled or sachet water.
• Only 14 percent of households have an improved toilet facility that is not shared with other households.
• Seventy-eight percent of households have electricity.
• More than 7 in 10 of residents in Northern and Upper East regions and 6 in 10 residents in Upper West region are in the lowest wealth quintile.
• Forty-two percent of the population in Ghana is under age 15.
• Thirty-four percent of households are headed by women.
• Seventy-one percent of children under 5 had their births registered.
• Among households in which the place for hand washing was observed, 37 percent of households have no water, soap, or other cleansing agent for hand washing
• Twenty-six percent of females and 18 percent of males age 6 and older have no education.
2.1.1 Water and Sanitation
The basic determinants of better health, such as access to safe water and sanitation, are still a basic problem in Ghana. Limited access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities and poor hygiene are associated with skin diseases, acute respiratory infections (ARIs), and diarrhoeal diseases, the leading preventable diseases. The source of drinking water is important because potentially fatal diseases, such as diarrhoeal diseases, guinea worm, typhoid, cholera, schistosomiasis, trachoma, and dysentery, are water-related diseases.
Table 2.1 shows the percent distribution of the households and the de jure population by source of drinking water, time to obtain drinking water, and treatment of drinking water, according to background characteristics. The source of drinking water is an indicator of its suitability for drinking. Lack of ready access to a water source may limit the quantity of suitable drinking water that is available to a household.
Even if the water is obtained from an improved source, it may be contaminated during transport or storage if fetched from a source not immediately accessible to the household. Six in ten households in Ghana (60 percent) obtain drinking water from an improved source, including a piped source within the dwelling, yard, or plot; a public tap, standpipe, tube well, or borehole; a hand pump, protected well, or protected spring; and rainwater. An additional 30 percent of households use bottled or sachet water.1 Ten percent of households still rely on unimproved sources.
The most common source of drinking water in urban areas is sachet water (43 percent), followed by public tap or standpipe (23 percent). In rural households, the most common source for drinking water is tube well or borehole (41 percent), followed by public tap or standpipe (19 percent). The most notable change in access to drinking water sources between 2008 and 2014 is the increase in the proportion of households using sachet water from 8 percent to 29 percent in the past six years. On the other hand, the proportion of households that use drinking water from public tap/standpipe or tube well/borehole has decreased from 57 percent in the 2008 GDHS to 44 percent in the 2014 GDHS, most likely due to switching to sachet water in the latter survey.
Fifteen percent of households have water on their premises, a decline from 23 percent reported in the 2008 GDHS. This is mostly due to the decline in the percentage of households in urban areas with water on their premises, from 42 percent in 2008 to 22 percent in 2014. However, there is a substantial increase in the proportion of urban households that spend less than 30 minutes to obtain water, from 51 percent in 2008 to 71 percent in 2014. Overall, 70 percent of households in 2014 spend less than 30 minutes to obtain their drinking water, with no major differences between urban and rural households.
Fifteen percent of households spend 30 minutes or longer to obtain their drinking water, 25 percent in rural areas compared with only 7 percent in urban areas.
The majority of households (93 percent) do not treat their drinking water, with similar proportions by residence. Boiling the water and straining it through cloth are the most common drinking water treatment methods (2 percent each). One percent of households are engaged in harmful practice of using camphor balls or naphthalene to purify their drinking water. Camphor or naphthalene are toxic and should not be used to treat drinking water. Overall, only 4 percent of households using an appropriate water treatment method. Over half of the households store their drinking water in a plastic container or a bucket (55 percent), 29 percent in a bottle or a sachet, 11 percent in a pot or earthenware vessel, and 6 percent in a metal container (data not shown).
1The WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) classifies bottled/sachet water used for drinking according to the source of water that households use for cooking and handwashing (secondary source). Where information about the secondary water source is not collected, JMP does not currently categorise bottled/sachet water as an improved drinking water source (WHO and UNICEF 2014). Since the 2014 Ghana DHS did not collect information on the secondary water source, the quality of bottled/sachet water is not known. However, to ensure consistency with the 2008 GDHS findings and in accordance with the The DHS Program tabulation plan, which categorises bottled/sachet water as improved, an additional category is included in Table 2.1 to show the percentage of households/population using “improved source, including bottled/sachet water”.
Housing Characteristics and Household Population • 13
Table 2.1 Household drinking water
Percent distribution of households and de jure population by source of drinking water, time to obtain drinking water, and treatment of drinking water, according to residence, Ghana 2014
Households Population
Characteristic Urban Rural Total Urban Rural Total
Source of drinking water Improved source, excluding
bottled/sachet water 52.6 69.0 60.1 57.0 71.4 64.2
Improved source, including
bottled//sachet water1 97.0 80.9 89.8 96.0 79.6 87.7
Time to obtain drinking water (round trip)
Water on premises 21.7 6.1 14.7 22.9 5.6 14.2
Water treatment prior to drinking2
Boiled 1.9 1.5 1.7 2.0 1.5 1.7
Percentage using an appropriate treatment
method3 5.7 2.5 4.2 5.3 2.5 3.8
Number 6,503 5,332 11,835 20,432 20,791 41,223
Note: Totals may not add up to 100 percent because households with missing information are not shown separately.
1 Since the 2014 Ghana DHS did not collect information on the secondary source of water, the quality of bottled/sachet water is not known.
However, to ensure consistency with the 2008 GDHS findings and in accordance with the The DHS Program tabulation plan, which categorises bottled/sachet water as improved, an additional category is included to show the percentage of households/population using “improved source, including bottled/sachet water”.
2 Respondents may report multiple treatment methods, so the sum of treatments may exceed 100 percent.
3 Appropriate water treatment methods include boiling, bleaching, filtering, solar disinfection, and purification tablets.
A household is classified as having an improved toilet if the toilet is used only by members of one household (i.e., it is not shared) and if the facility used by the household separates waste from human contact (WHO and UNICEF 2014). The types of facilities considered improved are toilets that flush or pour flush into a piped sewer system, septic tank, or pit latrine; ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines; and pit latrines with a slab (Table 2.2).
Table 2.2 shows that only 14 percent of households in Ghana use improved toilet facilities that are not shared with other households, and 61 percent use facilities that would be considered improved if they were not shared. Twice as many households in urban as in rural areas have improved toilet facilities that are not shared (18 percent versus 9 percent). More than one in four (26 percent) of households use a nonimproved toilet facility, 14 percent in urban areas and 41 percent in rural areas.
Seventeen percent of households in Ghana have no toilet facility and still use the bush or open field for defecation. As expected, rural households are much more likely to have no toilet facilities than urban households (29 percent versus 7 percent).
Table 2.2 further indicates that 4 in 10 households have a toilet facility in their dwelling, yard, or plot, 51 percent in urban areas compared with 27 percent in rural areas. About one-third of households (32 percent) take less than 30 minutes to reach a toilet facility, and 1 in 10 (11 percent) take more than 30 minutes to reach a toilet facility.
Table 2.2 Household sanitation facilities
Percent distribution of households and de jure population by type of toilet/latrine facilities, according to residence, Ghana 2014
Households Population
Type of toilet/latrine facility Urban Rural Total Urban Rural Total
Improved, not shared facility 17.8 8.5 13.6 20.5 9.6 15.0
Flush/pour flush to piped sewer
system 6.5 0.5 3.8 6.8 0.6 3.7
Flush/pour flush to septic tank 7.6 1.0 4.6 8.4 0.9 4.6 Flush/pour flush to pit latrine 0.4 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.3
Ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine 2.5 3.2 2.8 3.5 3.6 3.6
Pit latrine with slab 0.9 3.6 2.1 1.3 4.4 2.8
Shared facility1 68.5 50.7 60.5 65.0 44.5 54.7
Flush/pour flush to piped sewer
system 7.0 0.5 4.0 6.1 0.4 3.2
Flush/pour flush to septic tank 14.6 2.0 8.9 12.6 1.6 7.0 Flush/pour flush to pit latrine 4.7 0.8 3.0 4.3 0.7 2.5
Ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine 34.3 26.9 30.9 33.7 22.9 28.3
Pit latrine with slab 8.0 20.6 13.6 8.3 18.9 13.7
Nonimproved facility 13.7 40.8 25.9 14.4 45.9 30.3
Flush/pour flush not to sewer/septic
tank/pit latrine 1.3 0.0 0.7 1.3 0.0 0.6
Pit latrine without slab/open pit 4.8 11.4 7.7 4.7 11.5 8.1
Bucket 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.2
Hanging toilet/hanging latrine 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3
No facility/bush/field 7.1 28.8 16.9 7.9 34.0 21.0
Time to reach facility
No facility/bush/field 7.1 28.8 16.9 7.9 34.0 21.0
In own dwelling/yard/ plot 51.3 26.5 40.1 51.5 24.3 37.8
Less than 30 minutes 30.3 35.1 32.4 29.4 32.7 31.1
More than 30 minutes 11.2 9.6 10.5 11.0 9.0 10.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Number 6,503 5,332 11,835 20,432 20,791 41,223
Note: Totals may not add up to 100 percent because households with missing information are not shown separately.
1 Facilities that would be considered improved if they were not shared by two or more households.
2.1.2 Housing Characteristics
Housing characteristics and household assets can be used as a measure of the socioeconomic status of household members. Cooking practices and cooking fuels also affect the health of family members and the environment. For example, the use of biomass fuels exposes household members to indoor pollution, which has a direct bearing on their health and surroundings.
Table 2.3 presents information on the availability of electricity, type of flooring material, number of rooms for sleeping, type of fuel used for cooking, and place where cooking is done. Overall, 78 percent of households in Ghana have access to electricity, 91 percent in urban areas and 63 percent in rural areas.
This shows a marked improvement since the 2008 GDHS, when 61 percent of households had access to electricity; the sharpest increase has occurred in rural areas (from 38 percent to 63 percent). This increase is partially attributed to the rural electrification programmes implemented by successive governments in recent years.
Among flooring materials, cement is the most common (63 percent), with rural households being more likely than urban households to have cement flooring (70 percent versus 57 percent). Other common flooring materials include linoleum or rubber carpet (12 percent) and woolen or synthetic carpets (11 percent).
Housing Characteristics and Household Population • 15
Table 2.3 Household characteristics
Percent distribution of households by housing characteristics, percentage using solid fuel for cooking, and percent distribution by frequency of smoking in the home, according to residence, Ghana 2014
Residence Total
Housing characteristic Urban Rural Electricity Ceramic/marble/porcelain tiles/terrazo 13.2 1.9 8.1
Cement 57.1 70.1 63.0
Woolen carpets/synthetic carpet 15.1 5.5 10.8 Linoleum/rubber carpet 12.3 10.7 11.6
Frytol/fortified vegetable oil 43.9 19.4 32.9 Other vegetable oil 8.5 4.3 6.6
Frequency of smoking in the home
Daily 8.0 11.0 9.3
Note: Totals may not add up to 100 percent because households with missing information are not shown separately.
LPG = Liquid petroleum gas
1 Includes coal/lignite, charcoal, wood/straw/shrubs/grass, agricultural crops, and animal dung
The number of rooms used for sleeping indicates the extent of crowding in households.
Overcrowding increases the risk of contracting infectious diseases such as acute respiratory infections and skin diseases, which particularly affect children and the elderly population. Six in 10 households (61 percent) report using one room for sleeping, one in four (25 percent) use two rooms for sleeping, and 14
percent use three or more rooms. The proportion of households that uses one room for sleeping is higher in urban than in rural areas (65 percent versus 57 percent).
The presence and extent of indoor pollution depend on cooking practices, places used for cooking, and types of fuel used. According to the 2014 GDHS, 35 percent of households cook inside the house, 37 percent cook outdoors, and 24 percent cook in a separate building. The percentage of households that cook inside the dwelling is substantially higher in urban than in rural areas (48 percent versus 20 percent). By contrast, 34 percent and 43 percent of rural households cook in a separate building or outdoors, as compared with 16 percent and 31 percent, respectively, of urban households.
Table 2.3 also presents information on fuel and oil used for cooking by the Ghanaian households.
Wood (37 percent), charcoal (33 percent), and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, or biogas (24 percent) are the most commonly used cooking fuels. Urban households are much more likely than rural households to use LPG, natural gas, or biogas (37 percent versus 9 percent) or charcoal (42 percent versus 21 percent). On the other hand, a notably higher proportion of rural households use wood for cooking compared with urban households (66 percent versus 13 percent). Overall, 70 percent of households use solid fuel for cooking, i.e., charcoal, wood, straw, shrubs, grass and agricultural crops, and animal dung, a decline from 83 percent reported in the 2008 GDHS.
Red palm oil is the most commonly used cooking oil (47 percent), with a substantially higher percentage of rural households using it when compared with urban households (58 percent versus 39 percent). One-third of households use Frytol or fortified vegetable oil for cooking. Urban households are more than twice as likely as rural households to use Frytol or fortified vegetable oil (44 percent compared with 19 percent). Other vegetable oil and shear butter are each used by 7 percent of households.
A major concern for the government of Ghana is the effect of secondhand smoke, especially on the vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women, infants, and young children. The 2014 GDHS collected information on the frequency of smoking in the home in order to assess exposure of household members to secondhand smoking. Data show that 9 percent of households are exposed daily to secondhand smoke, with rural households being slightly more likely to be exposed than urban households (11 percent compared with 8 percent).
2.1.3 Household Possessions
Possession of durable consumer goods is another useful indicator of household socioeconomic status. The possession and use of household durable goods have multiple effects and implications. For instance, having access to a radio or television exposes household members to updated daily news events, information, and educational materials. Similarly, a refrigerator prolongs food storage and keeps food fresh and hygienic. A means of transportation allows greater access to services away from the local area and enhances social and economic activities. The 2014 GDHS collected information on possession of durable assets, means of transportation, and ownership of agricultural land and farm animals.
Table 2.4 shows that radios (69 percent), color televisions (62 percent), and mobile telephones (85 percent) are common durable goods owned by households in Ghana. Refrigerators are owned by 35 percent of households. Ownership of each of these household items is higher in urban than in rural areas.
Possession of color televisions, mobile phones, and refrigerators has increased since the 2008 GDHS survey, while possession of radios has decreased slightly. It is noteworthy that there has been an especially sharp increase in mobile phone ownership in Ghana, from 57 percent in 2008 to 85 percent in 2014, especially in rural households where mobile phone ownership has more than doubled (from 37 percent to 76 percent). In addition, 42 percent of households own a video deck or DVD/VCD and 16 percent have a sewing machine. Computers and access to the internet was reported each by 14 percent of households (data not shown).
Housing Characteristics and Household Population • 17 Looking at means of transport, bicycles continue to be common, with 23 percent of households owning a bicycle, 17 percent in urban areas and 31 percent in rural areas. Ownership of a motorcycle is more common in rural areas (11 percent) than in urban areas (7 percent), while ownership of a car or truck is more common in urban than in rural areas (13 percent compared with 4 percent).
Ghana is predominantly an agricultural economy, with a large proportion of the population engaged in this sector. The 2014 GDHS data indicate that 39 percent of households own agricultural land, with rural households notably more likely to own land (59 percent) than urban households (22 percent).
Thirty-six percent of households in the country possess farm animals, 55 percent in rural areas as compared with 20 percent in urban areas.
Table 2.4 Household possessions
Percentage of households possessing various household effects, means of transportation, agricultural land and livestock/farm animals by residence, Ghana 2014
Residence Total
Possession Urban Rural
Household effects
Radio 72.5 63.9 68.6
Color television 77.7 42.2 61.7 Mobile telephone 92.3 76.2 85.1 Non-mobile telephone 3.0 0.3 1.8 Refrigerator 50.5 16.4 35.1
Means of transport
Bicycle 17.4 30.7 23.4
Animal drawn cart 0.7 1.4 1.0 Motorcycle/scooter 6.9 11.1 8.8
Car/truck 13.2 4.4 9.2
Boat with a motor 0.3 0.4 0.4
Ownership of agricultural land 21.9 58.7 38.5
Ownership of farm animals1 19.7 54.7 35.5
Number 6,503 5,332 11,835
1 Cattle, milk cows, bulls, horses, donkeys, mules, goats, pigs, rabbits, grasscutters, sheep, chickens, or other poultry