Your thesis seeks to assess the determinants of household welfare in Ghana and how they vary across space/location. In the Field_data2017n SPSS file, welfare was measured in monetary terms (GHS) - amount of money a household has. Location is measure as urban and rural (loc2). The independent variables of interest to you are sex, age, education, household size, employment status (emp_status), and poverty status (pstatus).

1. Perform a descriptive analysis to assess the distribution of your independent variables across space/location. Before the analysis, recode employment status into unemployed, employee, self-employed, and retired/inactive. Similarly, recode age into categories: youth (15-35 years), adults (36 – 60 years) and aged (above 60 years). Use only percentage in presenting your results. Write a brief report about the results obtained.

2. From the analysis performed in Q1, you realised some form of association between five independent variables (sex, age category, education, employment status (recoded), and poverty status) and location.

a. State and explain the choice of a statistical test that will be appropriate in testing the association between the independent variables and location?

b. What are the assumptions underlying these test?

c. Perform the test and report your findings. (Remember to state your hypotheses and decision rule for each of the test).

3. From your literature review, you found that the average welfare of Ghanaians is GHS 3800. You wish to test if the average welfare of your sample is different from the average welfare stated in literature.

a. State and explain the choice of a statistical test that will be appropriate in performing this analysis?

b. What are the assumptions underlying these test?

c. Perform the test and report your findings. (Remember to state your hypotheses and decision rule).

4. You further wish to assess if the welfare of Ghanaians vary by location.

a. State and explain the choice of a statistical test that will be appropriate in performing this analysis?

b. What are the assumptions underlying these test?

c. Perform the test and report your findings. (Remember to state your hypotheses and decision rule).

5. Research has shown that there a relationship between household size and welfare. Test and describe the nature of the relationship between household size and welfare in your sample.

6. Estimate the determinants of welfare using the following variables: sex (s1q2 - use female as the reference group), age (s1q5y), age squared, education (high_edu - use no formal education as the reference group), employment status (emp_status – use unemployed as the reference group), household size (hhsize/s1q24), and location (use rural as the reference group) are good predictors of household welfare. Provide a brief report of your results.

7. Repeat the analysis in Q6 to assess if there is/are any spatial difference(s) in the determinants of welfare. Thus, test if the determinants of welfare in urban areas are different from the determinants of welfare in rural areas. Provide a brief report of your results.

8. As a measure of welfare, you are also interested in finding out the determinants of poverty.

a. Recode the poverty variable into a binary outcome (poor and non-poor)

b. State and explain the choice of a statistical test that will be appropriate in performing this analysis?

c. Perform the test and report your findings. (Remember to state your hypotheses and decision rule).