Introduction
Despite the various progress recorded over the last decades, Morocco is still experiencing significant gender gaps. According to the United Nations Development Programme Gender Inequality Index, in 2019, Morocco ranked 111 out of 162 countries—below other Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP) region countries such as Tunisia (65), Algeria (103), and Jordan (109).1 Female labor force participation remains low at 21 percent in 2021 and lags behind other countries at a similar income level. There are also gender gaps in education and literacy rates, particularly in secondary education and rural areas.
This is a cause of concern because countries with high gender inequality are, on average, poorer and grow more slowly. Several studies have highlighted the various channels through which significant gender gaps can hinder output growth. For example, having more women in the labor force increases the pool of talent that employers can hire, as well as the number of potential entrepreneurs. This implies a more efficient allocation of resources and hence higher productivity and growth (Cuberes and Teignier 2015). Moreover, women are more likely to invest a larger share of their household income in the education of their children (Elborgh-Woytek and others 2013). Gender inequality is also associated with higher income inequality, which itself has been shown to be a drag on growth (Ostry and others 2014). An IMF study (Gonzales and others 2015b) shows that the MENAP region could have gained $1 trillion in cumulative output—equivalent to twice the average real GDP growth during the past decade—if the gender gap in the labor force participation rate had narrowed from triple to double the average for other emerging market and developing countries during the past decade.
The chapter first provides an overview of trends in Morocco’s gender gaps both over time and compared to peer countries. It also offers estimates of GDP losses due to gender gaps based on IMF research (Dadam and others 2017) and concludes by discussing policies to reduce gender gaps in Morocco.
A Few Facts on Gender Gaps in Morocco
Education
Much progress has been made in Morocco in closing gender gaps in education enrollment over the past few decades, but challenges remain, particularly in rural areas. The female-to-male ratio of primary school enrollment rates jumped from about 70 percent in the mid-1990s to 97 percent in 2020. The gender gap for the secondary level also narrowed significantly and stands at 95 percent. Meanwhile, for tertiary education, the gender gap favors women rather than men because it is now over 100 percent. Nonetheless, Morocco is being outperformed by comparator regions and peer countries on secondary education (Figure 9.1). Gender gaps in the adult literacy rate have also narrowed, but Morocco is being outperformed by peer countries.
Education and Literacy in Morocco
Sources: International Labour Organization; World Bank, World Development Indicators; and IMF staff calculations.Note: In panels 1 and 2, the latest available data for Egypt, Mauritania, and Pakistan are from 2019. In panel 3, the latest available data for Pakistan are from 2019. EM = emerging market; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENAP = Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; OI = oil importers.Moreover, these improvements have been driven by the urban areas, where gender gaps in primary and secondary education enrollment have narrowed significantly. Rural girls’ secondary school enrollment (12–14 years old) trailed urban girls’ rates by 14 percentage points, and for girls aged 15–17, this gap jumped to 53 percentage points. Within the rural regions, gender gaps were 13 percentage points for 12–14-year-olds and 14 percentage points for 15–17-year-olds (Figure 9.2).
Labor Markets
Gender gaps in the Moroccan labor market are particularly large. At 21 percent in 2021, the rate of women’s participation in the labor force lags other countries at a similar income level and has been falling since 2004 (Figure 9.3). Frequent profiles of inactive workers suggest that women with low levels of education residing in urban areas are the most numerous of those who are neither working nor looking for work (Lopez-Acevedo and others 2021). Several factors explain the low level of female labor participation in Morocco (Box 9.1). Although the gender gap in urban areas is wider than in rural areas, female labor force participation has been relatively stable in urban areas, whereas it has declined in rural areas over the past decade (DEPF and UN Women 2021).
Female Labor Force Participation Gaps
(Percent)
Sources: International Labour Organization; World Bank; and IMF staff calculations.Note: Panel 2 shows male minus female participation rates. EMs = emerging markets; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENA = Middle East and North Africa; MENAP = Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; OI = oil importers.There are also some gender disparities in employment rates. The unemployment rate for women is higher than the unemployment rate for men in Morocco. Labor market skills mismatches and government regulations are known to be impediments to employment in Morocco, and their impact is more acute on women. Indeed, Angel-Urdinola and others (2016) showed that high minimum wages and payroll taxes are associated with higher unemployment rates and lower formality rates in Morocco, especially among youth and women in Morocco. Low levels of education also limit women’s chances for active participation in the economy; many of the less educated find work in informal, low-quality jobs (Figure 9.4).
Labor Force Participation and Employment Levels by Education, Gender, and Sector
(Percent)
Sources: Haut Commissariat au Plan; International Labor Organization; and IMF staff estimates.Note: Panel 3 shows the ratio of females to males, in percent. EM = emerging market; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENAP = Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; OI = oil importers.Drivers of Female Labor Force Participation in Morocco
There are important regionally specific factors, such as history, religion, and culture, as well as social norms that can help explain the low level of female labor force participation in the Middle East and North Africa region. In the case of Morocco, several articles (Verme and others 2014; Lopez-Acevedo and others 2021) argued that jobless growth—coupled with factors such as marriage, education, household composition, perceptions of the role of the women in the household, and society’s values regarding gender issues—tend to disproportionally influence female labor force participation.
Verme and others (2014) highlighted that the slow pace of structural transformation has not allowed sufficient creation of manufacturing jobs where women with a secondary school education could be employed. They also find that marriage and household composition also influence the probability of participation. Educated women are likely to marry educated men who have done better than women in the labor market and may be able to support their families on their own.
A recent study (DEPF and UN Women 2021) reached similar conclusions and noted that several factors such as gender norms, the legal framework, the structure of the economy, the labor market, and human capital explained the low level of female labor force participation. They also found that in urban areas, the proportion of women in the household positively affects female labor force participation.
Further evidence on the role that attitudes and marital status play in the decision to join the labor force can be seen in the chart below. In the World Values Survey (see Figure 9.1.1), Moroccan men and women were asked whether they agreed with the statement “Men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce.” More than three-quarters of married men and 86 percent of divorced or widowed men agreed. For never-married men, the share stood at 70 percent. On the other hand, only half of married women and slightly less than half of women who have never married agreed. The highest share of women who agreed was divorced or widowed women, at 56 percent. These responses reflect a large gender gap in attitudes on working, ranging from 24 percentage points to 30 percentage points.
Attitudes toward Female Work
Sources: World Values Survey, 2011; Arab Barometer.Sources: Lopez-Acevedo and others (2021); World Values Survey, 2011; Arab Barometer.Legal Barriers
Morocco has made substantial progress over the last decade in promoting gender equality in its legal framework by allowing women to be head of a household in the same way as a man and by introducing criminal penalties for gender-based violence. The World Bank’s (2015) “Women, Business and the Law” report tracked legal barriers that impact women’s economic empowerment and calculated an index for 190 countries. The index measures gender discrimination in eight key areas: mobility, workforce, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pension. As can be seen in Figure 9.5, Morocco’s legal reforms have boosted its overall performance on the index to a level well above that of its peers in the region.
Legal Barriers, as Measured by World Bank Women, Business, and the Law Index, 1990–2022
(WBL Index, 100 = gender equality)
Sources: World Bank Group, Women, Business, and the Law; and IMF staff calculations.Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa.Changes to the Family Code in 2004 underlie the largest jump in the Women, Business, and the Law index. More recently, in 2021, the Moroccan Parliament adopted legal reforms aimed at promoting higher levels of women on corporate governance bodies and set mandatory quotas for women on boards of publicly traded companies. This reform addresses an important gender gap in the country because women are vastly underrepresented in managerial and board positions. In fact, as Mouline, Ozlu, and Herzog (2022) pointed out, in 2019 women led only 13 percent of businesses, held only 23 percent of public sector managerial positions, and comprised only 21 percent of regional and local board members.
Although female representation in parliament also remains well below gender parity, there has been an upward trend in the share of seats held by women (Figure 9.6). Women represented less than 1 percent of parliamentarians in 1997, but by 2020 women held just over 20 percent of the seats. This is almost 2 percentage points higher than the share of its regional emerging market peers.
Percentage of Seats Held by Women in National Parliaments
Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union; and IMF staff calculations.Note: For 1998, the data are as of August 10, 1998. MENA = Middle East and North Africa.COVID-19 and Gender Gaps
The Moroccan government acted swiftly in introducing a state of health emergency at the start of the pandemic. Although this helped mitigate the initial health impact of COVID-19, poverty, employment, and gender equality were negatively affected. Unemployment rates in urban regions increased by 4 percentage points (9.1 percent in 2019 versus 13.0 percent in 2020), whereas in rural regions the unemployment rate more than doubled, from 3.4 percent in 2019 to 7.2 percent in 2020 (Abouzzohour 2020). A joint study from Morocco’s High Commission for Planning, the UN Development System, and the World Bank (2020) also showed that a larger share of women reported a decline in their income during the COVID-19 crisis. Informal sector workers, who are disproportionately women, suffered higher rates of job losses than formal sector workers. The study also estimated that the poverty rate would increase from 4.8 percent in 2014 to 6.6 percent in 2020, and during the lockdown period, women’s time spent on domestic work increased by about 33 minutes per day. Domestic violence reports also increased.
Quantifying The Impact of Gender GAPS on Growth
An IMF research paper (Dadam and others 2017) quantified the effect of gender inequality on output growth in Morocco. The paper used cross-country growth regressions to estimate the impact of gender inequality on growth while controlling for the impact of variables such as initial income, investment, education, infrastructure, terms of trade, and institutional quality. The sample consisted of 103 countries from regions including MENA, Latin American countries, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia as well as selected advanced economies over the period 1990–2014. Consistent with previous studies (for example, Hakura and others 2016), the results showed that gender inequality has a negative impact on growth and this impact is more striking for countries in their early stages of development. The paper then quantified the extent to which the differences in average real GDP per capita growth rates between Morocco and four benchmark groups can be explained by differences in gender gaps.2 This approach reveals that income inequality, years of education, and gender gaps can explain a significant share of Morocco’s real GDP per capita shortfall compared to benchmark groups. In particular, reducing gender inequality and improving education to the levels of the Asian, emerging Europe, and Latin American benchmark countries could boost real GDP per capita growth rates relative to these countries by 1 percent, 1.5 percent, and 0.75 percent, respectively.
Dadam and others (2017) also used an occupational choice model, following Cuberes and Teignier (2016), to quantify income losses due to the misallocation of women in the labor force. The results showed that Morocco is losing a significant share of income due to gender gaps in the labor market. The costs associated with gender gaps in labor force participation and entrepreneurship are as high as 46 percent of income per capita compared to a situation where women have the same level of labor force and entrepreneurship participation as men.
Reducing gender gaps would also help offset the impact of the demographic transition on growth. Simulating the implication of an increase in the dependency ratio for men and women suggests that policies to eliminate gender gaps could offset those negative effects. This in turn may lead to overall income gains of about 22 percent in 2040 if gender gaps were to be closed in 50 years. These gains in GDP decrease with the increase in the time it takes to eliminate gender gaps. For instance, the results show that GDP gains would be 14 percent if gender gaps were to be eliminated in 100 years, and 9 percent were they to be eliminated in 150 years (Figure 9.7).
Demographic Transition in Morocco
Sources: UN Population Division; and IMF staff estimates.Note: In panel 1, dependents are those younger than 15 or older than 64; working-age population includes those aged 15–64. In panel 2, the baseline assumes continuation of the current gender gap and a medium level of fertility.More recent work by Bargain and Lo Bue (2021) examining the impact of closing employment gender gaps provided further evidence on the large GDP losses. The authors followed the method in Ostry and others (2018) to analyze and estimate the complementarities between female and male labor market participation. The approach relies on firm-level data, which are often scarce for non–advanced-market countries, to calculate the potential gains from a small and a complete reduction in gender gaps in employment. That is, if only one-quarter of the gender gap were to be closed, GDP per capita could be increased by between 6 percent and 13 percent, whereas eliminating the gender gap3 could lead to GDP per capita gains between 22 percent and 39 percent.
Government Policies to Reduce Gender Inequality
Research by the IMF shows that policies can have an impact on closing gender gaps regardless of country-specific circumstances and cultural norms. For example, Christiansen and others (2016) examined the drivers of female labor force participation in Europe and found that demographics and women’s self-reported attitudes toward the desirability of formal labor force participation are key predictors of women’s decision to join the labor force. However, policies matter as well, and tax distortions, childcare provisioning, and parental leave are additional factors that can have a positive impact on female labor force participation. Fabrizio and others (2020) offered further evidence on the relationship between social norms and policies. Using a model-based framework, the authors estimated the potential GDP gains from gender-responsive fiscal policy measures. They then modeled the reduction of social bias against women and found that their estimates on GDP gains could be further increased by up to 5 percent.
Cultural norms and attitudes in Morocco likely play a role in creating and sustaining gender gaps, as in many other countries. Thus, the country’s past and recent efforts to introduce gender-responsive policies and legal framework reforms are welcome. Below, key milestones are summarized and suggestions for additional policies and programs are presented.
Legal framework. There are several laws in Morocco that promote gender equality, including the (revised) Labor Code (2004);4 the 2011 constitution, which provides for equality for Moroccan citizens; and the Family Code, which was revised in 2004 with a view to expanding the rights of women in areas such as guardianship, marriage, child custody, and access to divorce. In 2017, the Act on the Authority for Equality and Fight Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted, and in 2018, a law aimed at reducing gender-based violence was adopted. Notably, the country has also introduced programs and policies to help with the effective implementation of these laws, including by providing support to domestic violence centers and introducing media programs to combat gender-based stereotypes.
Gender budgeting. Morocco is notable for having the first and most developed gender budgeting initiative in the Middle East and Central Asia region. Box 9.2 gives an overview of Moroccos achievements in this area.
Maternity leave and protection. Morocco increased maternity leave in 2004. It now offers 14 weeks of maternity leave, at 100 percent of a woman’s wages payable from a national social security fund, thereby meeting the International Labor Office standards on duration of maternity leave. Paid paternity leave is also available; increasing paternity leave, which is currently one of the lowest in the world (3 days), could contribute to gender equality at work and intra-household equality. Replacing maternity and paternity leave with parental leave options could also help break down gender stereotypes and encourage female labor force participation. Moreover, there is no legal prohibition on dismissing pregnant workers.
COVID-19 measures. In an effort to address the negative impacts on women and girls during the pandemic, the Moroccan government introduced several gender-sensitive policy measures. For example, according to the UN Women/United Nations Development Programme COVID-19 policy tracker, the Public Prosecutors Office strengthened domestic violence victims’ ability to access courts. The government also established a mobile/toll-free counseling platform to allow domestic violence victims access to remote help and introduced awareness raising campaigns. A guarantee mechanism was established to provide financing options for very small and small and medium enterprises, many of which were headed by women. Hygiene kits were provided to vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, female victims of domestic violence, and teachers. Although the authorities have taken several measures to reduce gender gaps, some could be expanded or complemented by additional policies such as the following:
Legal restrictions. Providing for equality in inheritance rights can create opportunities for women to own housing or land (World Bank 2015) and lead to smaller gender gaps in labor force participation (Gonzales and others 2015a). As noted previously in this chapter, Morocco has made substantial progress in legal reforms over the last two decades, but there are several areas where legal inequalities remain. The World Bank’s 2022 “Women, Business and the Law” report notes that the legal framework still allows for gender inequality in pay, marriage-related constraints, property and inheritance laws, and pensions. Women also face barriers should they choose to work after having children.
Infrastructure. Safe public transportation and improved road accessibility would decrease women’s travel time and therefore reduce the costs related to work and going to school outside the home (World Bank 2016). Investing in public childcare facilities could free women’s time to go to school and join the labor market, because women are in most cases the main providers of household work in Morocco and caring for children/ home was listed as the primary reason for women not working in the analysis included in the 2019 Finance Bill. Lack of access to transportation was also included as a reason that women, especially rural women, were not able to access healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ministry of Economy and Finance of Morocco 2022).
Education gaps. The Strategic Vision of Reform 2015–2030 (Royaume du Maroc 2015) aims to establish, among other components, universal preschool education, apply positive discrimination in rural/suburban areas to help close the existing gaps, encourage girls and other marginalized groups to attend and complete school, and upgrade the quality of schools and technology. In 2019, The World Bank introduced a $500 million program to improve the performance and efficiency of the school system and help the government achieve its goal of universal preschool education by 2027. Still, social norms and stereotypes need to be addressed as the International Labor Office (2019) noted that these could limit the educational options offered to boys and girls and serve as a barrier to training for women in rural areas.
The pandemic also posed challenges for gender equality in education. A joint survey conducted by the Morocco High Commission for Planning and UN Women examined the barriers to distance learning and found that female-headed households were more likely than male-headed households to report that their children were not participating in distance learning. Lack of access to computers and the internet as well as the higher rate of illiteracy for women compared to men (42 percent versus 22 percent) all posed challenges for distance learning (Ministry of Economy and Finance of Morocco 2022).
Gender budgeting. The authorities have continued to push forward with their gender budgeting efforts, introducing improvements to their annual Gender Report and expanding their focus on monitoring and evaluation. For example, in the 2019 Finance Bill Gender Report, the Department of National Education published targets for a broad range of education-related goals for girls. Including such targets increases transparency and accountability and provides a base for developing further monitoring and evaluation efforts. Not all departments and ministries have completed a gender-sensitive analysis (according to the 2022 Gender Budgeting Report Summary), and this could impact their ability to set appropriate targets and develop and fund the associated programs.
Gender Budgeting in Morocco
Fiscal policies can play an important role in promoting gender equality and women’s development. Gender budgeting allows fiscal authorities, at any level of government, to assess the needs of men and women; identify key outcomes or goals; plan, allocate, and distribute public funds; and monitor and evaluate achievements. More than 100 countries have introduced gender budgeting initiatives. Whereas the focus for most countries tends to be on using spending policies to address gender inequality, some countries have introduced changes to tax policies. Gender budgeting may emphasize administrative changes to expenditure tracking and monitoring systems.
Morocco is notable for being one of the early adopters and leaders of gender budgeting in the Middle East and Central Asia regions. The Council of Government approved in 2014 an organic finance law with two key components designed to strengthen the initiative. First, the law requires that gender equality be considered when defining performance objectives, results, and indicators in all line budgets. Second, the law dictates that the Gender Report be included as part of each year’s finance bill (UN Women 2014). In 2015, the country introduced a law on adopting performance-based budgeting for all ministries, requiring that each public program objective takes gender into consideration.
The 2019 Gender Report, published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, covered 28 ministries and highlights key gender equality goals, recent accomplishments, and remaining challenges. It was redesigned, with support from UN Women, to become a tool for accountability, monitoring, and evaluation. For example, the report included an analysis on barriers to female employment, finding that care responsibilities, husband’s/father’s lack of approval, and own unwillingness to work are among the top reasons women do not join the labor force.
The 2020 Gender Report further supported gender budgeting performance reporting, by offering a more standardized template for reporting and improved guidelines and examples for ministries. Moreover, the 2020 report includes an analysis of the macro-criticality of gender equality and an analysis of ministerial efforts to address gender equality in program performance, including whether the ministry/department has a gender strategy, what its gender-sensitive programs/goals are, and the number of gender-sensitive indicators for each goal. Beginning in 2002, Morocco’s efforts on gender budgeting focused on meeting the Millennium Development Goals, increasing women’s public employment, and collecting gender-disaggregated data.
The 2021 Gender Report includes analyses examining the impact of COVID-19 on male and female (1) frontline workers, (2) beneficiaries of public assistance, and (3) time spent on unpaid work, among others. It also included a summary and statistics on gender-based violence.
Policy measures in the report call for generating new gender disaggregated data, adopting gender-sensitive responses to the pandemic, increasing women and girls’ access to digital technologies, reducing violence against women, and ensuring that women participate in developing pandemic response measures.
Source: Authors.Conclusion
The chapter documented key stylized facts and trends regarding gender gaps in Morocco. Despite some progress over time, gender gaps in education, labor force participation, and employment still exist. At 21 percent in 2021, female labor force participation lags behind other countries at a similar income level and has been falling since 2004. Improvements in education enrollment rate have been driven by the urban areas. At the secondary level, rural girls’ secondary school enrollment rate trailed urban girls’ rates and female adult literacy. Gender gaps in the adult literacy rate remain significant. There are also gender disparities in employment rates, with women more likely than men to work in low-quality, informal jobs.
Using the results of existing regression analyses relating gender gaps to GDP losses, the chapter found that closing the overall gender gap could help Morocco close its GDP per capita gap with benchmark countries in other regions by up to 1.5 percentage points. Simulations also show that gradually closing gender gaps in the labor force participation rate could lead to significant income gains over the long term.
With the potential gains from greater gender equality clear, the chapter summarizes the progress Morocco has made in terms of legal and policy reforms aimed at closing gender gaps. Moreover, it also spotlights the critical role that policies can play, particularly when social norms and attitudes are driving factors behind long-standing gender gaps.
Finally, the chapter points to several areas for additional reforms and policy changes going forward. For example, legal barriers that hinder equal opportunities in labor force participation should be removed. The Moroccan government should continue its long-standing efforts to create a comprehensive gender-budgeting framework. Rural and urban divides need to be considered, and gendered analysis that allows for additional demographic information can help better inform policy and budgetary decisions. Ensuring equal access to education and redoubling efforts to close literacy gaps will be crucial for building a highly skilled labor force.
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This index measures gender inequality of outcomes (the gap between male and female labor force participation rates and the share of women’s seats in parliament) as well as inequality of opportunity (gender gaps in education and indicators of female health, such as the maternal death ratio and adolescent fertility).
MENAP oil importers (Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Tunisia, and Pakistan), Asian countries (Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and China), Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, and Peru), and European countries (Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine, and Romania).
The authors use a female labor force participation rate of 70 percent, which is also close to the approximate rate in advanced markets.
In 2004, a new labor law went into effect in Morocco that extended maternity leave from 12 weeks to 14 weeks and provided time allowances for breast-feeding.
