From Social Protection to Personal Protection: Implications for an Integrated Framework of Retirement Planning for Informal Workers in Ghana

Without a mandatory retirement age, many informal workers are exploring diverse ways of ensuring their well-being as they age. This exploratory study focuses on the retirement plans of workers in Ghana’s informal sector to inform interventions to ensure their well-being. Findings from 35 in-depth interviews among self-employed informal workers in Adum-Kumasi, the largest hub of Ghana’s informal work, highlight that retirement planning is centred on self-protection through investment in economic and non-economic activities. The study contributes to the discourse on extending social protection coverage to informal work settings. It further recommends an integrated policy framework for social protection to cover a broad range of domains that are important for the well-being of informal workers in later life.