Urban poverty is invariably linked to sociospatial dimensions of livelihood strategies. Gendered social relations, for example, have been seen to impact the ability of females to access resources, to gain assets, and to engage in viable income‐generating activities. Focussing on the livelihood strategies of the urban poor as they intersect with neoliberal economic reforms in contemporary Ghana, this paper draws on a field‐based survey of porters in Accra, mostly migrants from rural agricultural northern Ghana, whose primary livelihoods derive from transporting goods for clients in congested market areas of the urban industrial south. The paper highlights the gendered aspects of porters' livelihood experiences such as differences in migration patterns, reliance on physical labour and living conditions, which relatively few analyses have examined, especially as these relate to wider socioeconomic processes. The study illustrates how this perspective is important to understand the intersection of livelihood strategies, gender and national economic reforms in promoting both rural and urban development.

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A recent body of thought has arisen contending that skilled migration can have a net positive benefit for sending countries. The main underlying argument concerns the remittances that skilled migrants send back home. Using skilled Ghanaian migrants abroad, in this study we examine the factors that impact remittances. We drew our sample from Ghanaian professional groups on social networking sites (SNSs) -Facebook and LinkedIn -supplemented by an offline sample. Our results indicate that remittances by skilled Ghanaian migrants increase as the migrant's household income increases and decrease as the time spent abroad by the skilled migrant increases. Additionally, as the level of educational attainment of the skilled migrant increases, the level of remittances decreases. Finally, the reason for remitting impacts the level of remittances. Specifically, remittances to support family in need and to finance building and investment projects positively impact the level of remittances. In conclusion, we observe that when skilled migrants have a greater attachment to their host countries, they tend to remit less. Likewise, when skilled migrants have a greater attachment to their home countries, they tend to remit more.