In Morocco, families are smaller and more urban, according to the latest census

Morocco has gained 25 million inhabitants in sixty years. Currently there are almost 37 million, according to the results (partially communicated) of the last decennial census, carried out on 1^Ahem before September 30. If the French population had grown at this rate, today it would have exceeded 140 million. But as spectacular as it is – without being exceptional in Africa – Morocco’s great demographic leap is experiencing its decline.

This is one of the main confirmations of the counting work carried out by the Ministry of the Interior and the High Commissioner for Planning (HCP): the kingdom’s population is certainly still increasing, but at a slower pace. Its ten-year growth rate, 30% on average between 1960 and 2000, has slowed significantly. Divided by two in the 2000s, it has stagnated at 9% for ten years. At an annual rate, Morocco’s population growth has fallen even below the symbolic threshold of 1%.

This slowdown is not surprising. Mortality continues to decline, as does the birth rate. Near the end of its demographic transition, Morocco should reach “its stationary population, estimated at 45 million inhabitants, around the year 2050”predicts the HCP. On this date its natural increase will be “practically insignificant”.

rural exodus

As throughout North Africa, Morocco’s population is living longer than before (almost 77 years on average, compared to 47 years in 1960) and having fewer children than previous generations. The fertility rate, which was 7 children per woman at the end of independence, is now approaching the renewal threshold, set at 2.1. The reasons for this decline are innumerable. Among them, rampant urbanization, the generalization of schooling, the employment of women… Nothing that Western societies have not also experienced.

But the transformations in Morocco, initiated by the changes introduced during the colonial period, are more notable and brutal and developed in a very short period. The Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), which relied on documentation from the French protectorate, puts the country’s population at 5 million in 1900 and 9 million in 1950; or 4 million new inhabitants in half a century, to which another 4 million were added in just twelve years, between 1952 and 1964.

As a logical consequence of this boom, Morocco very soon adopted a family policy aimed at reducing its demographic growth, authorizing in 1967 the promotion of contraception, whose prevalence rate is currently around 70%. Added to this is the rural exodus, which has never been contained. With this, the decline of traditional agriculture contributed to the disintegration of a family system until then. “based on co-ownership and self-subsistence”underlines the HCP. A third of the inhabitants still live in the countryside.

In the midst of change, the family institution is no longer what it was. Households have shrunk: their average size has fallen below four people for the first time. The house model that accommodates several generations tends to disappear. Among the symbols of this upheaval, sociologist Mehdi Alioua highlights one in particular: the introduction of the “parents’ bedroom”, synonymous with intimacy in a country where the notion of an extended family living under the same roof has long prevailed.

This nuclearization of homes is accompanied by the increase in the urban population. With a drawback in very large cities, where the high cost of living and more difficult living conditions, the researchers note, push residents to move to the outskirts. At a faster rate, Casablanca and Rabat continue to lose residents.

shadow area

It is appropriate to evaluate the effects of institutional responses in recent years on Morocco’s demographics. Enacted in 2004, the family code, then described as “revolutionary” by feminist circles, should, according to the HCP, play “a regulatory role in organizing social progress illustrated by family dynamics”.

Without a doubt, this text, which would enshrine greater equality between the sexes, contributed to the emancipation of women, but their activity rate fell from 28% in 2000 to 19% in 2023. Improving their economic situation is clearly a failure. “They cannot work at any price. Someone has to take care of the children, the house. But the State has not prepared anything for this. These issues should have been resolved a long time ago.estimates socioeconomist Samira Mizbar.

Another failure: the weakening of the birth rate has not led – or very little – to reaping the benefits of the demographic dividend, which the HCP identified in 2012 as a ” chance “ for the Moroccan economy. This well-known phenomenon, which is assumed to occur when the ratio between the active population and the number of dependents increases, leading to a fall in dependency rates, has not been supported by appropriate public policies. According to the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (EESC), some 4.3 million people between 15 and 35 years old were without education, employment or training in 2022.

Demographic research in Morocco is increasingly detailed, the problems are documented, detailed reports follow one another, but the executive does not seem to have measured the urgency of the measures to be taken, experts warn.

Data on the proportion of foreigners residing there also shows that Morocco is no longer just a transit country. There are almost 150,000, an increase of around 70% in the last ten years. A figure probably lower than reality, observe analysts, who point out the possible mistrust aroused by the deployment of state agents for this census. However, the kingdom is not a land of immigration. But as conditions for reaching Europe from Africa have tightened considerably, it welcomes a growing number of sub-Saharan students. Retirees and European workers are also more numerous there, attracted by a daily life supposedly cheaper than at home.

There remains a gray area, which more complete information (coming soon) should help clarify. In its forecasts for 2025, the HCP expected a population of 39 million inhabitants. Where did the missing 2 million go? Samira Mizbar asks: “Either the fall in the fertility rate was greater than expected or emigration was underestimated. »