Youth in the Ghana Experiment: Characteristics and Living Conditions

This YouthSave Research Brief focuses on the individual, social, and economic characteristics of youth and their families in the Ghana Experiment. The study uses a cluster randomized design with 100 schools randomly selected from eight of Ghana's ten regions. The study sample comprises 6,252 youth and 4,576 parents and guardians of these youth. The data reveals that socioeconomic characteristics of youth and their households in YouthSave Ghana differ from those of the general Ghanaian population. Differences include:

• Average monthly income of YouthSave Ghana households is lower than the general Ghanaian population;
• Study sample has a lower percentage of parents or guardians who have completed their post-secondary education than the general population;
• Higher percentage of households in the study stock wealth as livestock, compared to the general population, indicating that they are mostly low-income;
• Higher percentage of parents or guardians in the study are service and sales workers, mostly in the informal sector. This is consistent with a low-income population.

Overall, these differences appear to indicate that the YouthSave Ghana Experiment has been successful in selecting a sample of low-income youth, the target population.