Morocco has more than 36.8 million inhabitants, three more than a decade ago. After multiplying its official population balance by three since 1960, at the dawn of independence, demographic progress towards the bar of 40 million citizens has been slowed by the drop in the birth rate, from 2.3 children per woman, at the limit of the level of generational replacement, very far from the seven children per woman of the fifties of the last century. The decennial population census presented this month by the authorities confirms a drift of decline, pending the publication of the final results, since Morocco’s population growth rate has fallen to 0.85% annually from 1.2% 2014 due to emigration abroad. Meanwhile, an older country like Spain surpasses it with a growth rate of 1.2%, precisely thanks to the continuous arrival of migrants.
“The aging of Morocco is an inevitable phenomenon due to the collapse in fertility,” warns Abdeselam Fazuan, 64, former director of the National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics (Insea). “Even so, it is still far from European countries, and it will take at least three decades until it completes its demographic transition,” maintains this expert, a doctor in demography from the University of Leuven (Belgium). “The generations between 15 and 60 years old continue to be the dominant ones, but we have to prepare and anticipate policies before the 2034 and 2044 censuses show more pronounced decline data,” he warns. Each year, the increasing departure of Moroccans abroad reduces the population growth rate by 0.25%, which is not compensated by sub-Saharan immigration in transit.
Moroccan demographics maintain a powerful inertia, despite now growing slowly, with a gross birth rate of 17 children per 1,000 inhabitants, which represents more than 600,000 births annually; Spain has fallen to around 7 per 1,000, around 300,000 births, despite having 10 million more inhabitants. “Morocco has a gap of about 40 years in its population evolution with Spain, which supports negative natural growth (more deaths than births) that is compensated by net migration. Unlike the North African country, which has just registered just under 150,000 foreigners (with 62,000 more in the last 10 years after the regularization of 50,000 sub-Saharans), more than 6.5 million citizens of other nationalities reside in Spain. In contrast, between five and six million Moroccans live abroad, mostly in countries in Europe, North America and the Middle East, where many have already acquired nationality.
Fazuan, who has prepared studies on gender inequality and population aging for UN Women and the World Bank, highlights that the digitalization of the census process, with interviewers equipped with tablets connected online, has made it possible to obtain for the first time global data on inhabitants in just over a month. Considers that the progress of the 2024 census presented by the High Commissioner of the Plan, a public body that centralizes economic and statistical information, has not reflected major surprises regarding the demographic trends already studied.
With one exception: the slowdown of the unstoppable exodus of inhabitants from the countryside to the big cities, which was expected to reach 65% of the urban population, and has finally reached 63%. “Two points is an important difference. A stronger rate of urban growth was expected,” he analyzes. “But Covid, international crises and, above all, the difference in purchasing power between rural areas and the high prices in cities have stabilized the population in the countryside.”
One of the most visible changes in the landscape in recent years in the Maghreb country is behind this trend. Between the sixties and eighties, migration to the cities offered the option of settling in a shanty for about 200 dirhams (about 20 euros). “The Government has taken measures to eradicate slums or towns with substandard housing and the rents for apartments, even the most humble ones, are high. Conditions in urban environments seem increasingly harsh for rural people,” argues this expert.
Symptoms of an ’emptied Morocco’
This does not prevent some regions from beginning to consider themselves as part of a Morocco emptied. This is the case of the Eastern Region – which includes Oujda, bordering Algeria, and Nador, adjacent to the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla -, which presents negative demographic growth (-0.09%) in a decline in its weight and attractiveness. economical. Meanwhile, other inland agricultural regions, such as Beni Mellal, have seen their population growth rate frozen after six years of drought.
The population increase continues to be concentrated in the regions of Casablanca, with an average annual increase of 64,000 inhabitants; Rabat, 40,000, or Tangier, 33,000. Together with Agadir, Meknes, Marrakech and Fez, they account for two thirds of Moroccan population growth. Pending final census data, the Morocco emptied It is already emerging in municipalities that have gone from 10,000 to less than 4,000 inhabitants. “Where have those inhabitants gone? To nearby areas; to the large Moroccan agglomerations, abroad? We still don’t know,” ventures demographer Fazuan, “but it is clear that the drought and the lack of employment opportunities and infrastructure, due to the uneven development of the country, are the main reasons.”
Another fact that the census highlights is the progressive reduction in the number of family members, with 72% nuclear families, and the progressive disappearance of the extended traditional clan controlled by a patriarch under the same roof. These are smaller and more urban families. The urban housing offer is now concentrated in two or three bedroom apartments. In the last decade, it has gone from 4.6 members per family to 3.9. Houses, generally self-built, with several floors to accommodate three or four generations of the same family, still exist in rural areas.
The agricultural sector represents 15% of the GDP, but employs about 40% of the active population. The Arab Barometer, an opinion study carried out by a network of university researchers from North Africa and the Middle East, revealed last June that 35% of Moroccans have considered emigrating to Europe and North America, and more than half of them They are willing to do it illegally.
The rampant urbanization of Moroccan society has been accompanied by a rate of female labor activity (21%) that remains very low. Government policies are failing to boost women’s employment. In the absence of daycare centers, early childhood education centers and assistance for the care of the elderly, Moroccan women stay at home. The rise, in addition, of the average age of first marriage (27 years for women, 31 for men), in parallel, has deepened the model of declining fertility that already prevails throughout North Africa.
Demographic bomb
On the other hand, Morocco is experiencing an increase in life expectancy, which is now estimated at an average of 77 years (compared to 47 years in 1960), in a society that is still young, with less than 10% over 60 years of age and still with 25% under 15 years of age. In recent years, the Maghreb country is enjoying the so-called demographic golden opportunity, having large cohorts of working age to modernize the economy. But in recent years a lot has also happened ―arab springcovid, war in Ukraine―, which seem to have prevented us from taking advantage of the occasion.
“Above all, investments aimed at the job qualifications of young people between 15 and 30 years old are necessary,” warns Fazuan. “To build the Morocco of tomorrow, as South Korea did in the sixties, we must focus on education and training. It is not too late yet, but the current initiatives have not yielded many results and we are going to regret it,” he says. One and a half million young Moroccans, one in four aged between 15 and 24, neither study nor work. If the range is extended to 35 years, the number of ninis —as this group is also known— skyrockets to 4.3 million, one in three, in a country of almost 37 million inhabitants, according to a recent report by the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
“That is a demographic bomb,” adds the statistical expert. “As a citizen, I consider that some large multi-million dollar investments in infrastructure [como las del Mundial de Fútbol de 2030] “They would have to be redirected towards the training of young people so as not to waste a historic opportunity.” “My father was a salaried truck driver, we were a modest family,” Fazuan recalls. “But as a young person in the sixties and seventies, I was able to study for free in a good educational system. Today that is very difficult,” he laments. “Social mobility has slowed down in Morocco.”
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