Wealth index quintile share of the rural household population in Ghana 2018

Wealth index quintiles divide a given population into five equally large groups, on the basis of their wealth rank.

The source explains that: "To construct the wealth index, principal components analysis is performed by using information on the ownership of consumer goods, dwelling characteristics, water and sanitation, and other characteristics that are related to the household’s wealth, to generate weights (factor scores) for each of the items used. First, initial factor scores are calculated for the total sample. Then, separate factor scores are calculated for households in urban and rural areas."

It adds that: "The wealth index is assumed to capture the underlying long-term wealth through information on the household assets and is intended to produce a ranking of households by wealth, from poorest to richest. The wealth index does not provide information on absolute poverty, current income or expenditure levels".