The long voyage home: Return migration among aging cocoa farmers of Ghana

This paper examines the factors which influence return migration by rural farmers, aged 45 and older, among the Ashanti of Ghana, West Africa. Coming home is a key transition in the life course of rural migrants because it marks the start of mature adulthood. Among cocoa farmers, successful return migration depends on synchronizing the economic life of cocoa trees with the farmers' life course. Migrant farmers must weigh the advantages of income from cocoa, particularly for achieving positions of power and respect, against the loss of family support when they live away from their hometown for many years. Reduced profitability of cocoa production combined with increasing demands on the resources of aging farmers are limiting the ability of rural migrants to return home. Those who delay find that cocoa farming increasingly conflicts with their need to participate in the family network of support. Aging migrants who remain in remote farming villages can face considerable hardship because these villages are not an appropriate social setting for growing old.