By Ebi Kesiena
Ghana Statistical Service 2021 Population and Housing Census report has revealed that ghanaians numbering 1,622,718 who are 15 years and above are informally living together as married couples or cohabiting.
Wikipedia defines Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis.
According to the report, about 8.2% of the country’s population 15 years and older live together as married couples, but in actual sense are not married.
Of the 1.62 million cohabiting, 46.2% are males while the remaining majority are females – 53.8%.
A disaggregation of the data at both urban and rural levels shows about 6.8% of Ghana’s urban population 15 years and above cohabitate while the rate is relatively higher at the rural level- 10.1%, which is significantly greater than the national average of 8.2 %.
At the regional level, Ashanti region topped with about 348,045 people cohabiting followed by the Greater Accra region with 294,795 while North East recorded the least – 9,239 which is about 37 times smaller than what was recorded in the Ashanti region.
Also, the latest data from the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) revealed that 553,065 persons in Ghana have had their marriages dissolved while 405,090 have separated.
