To bring the activity rate of women to 26.9%, Morocco will have to create some 219,000 net new jobs annually for the benefit of women only. This is what emerges from the annual report of Bank Al-Maghrib for the year 2021.
For the year 2021, the female activity rate, that is to say the level of participation in the labor market, was approximately 20.9%. This is the second lowest level recorded since 1999, after the sharp drop recorded in 2020 due to Covid-19.
According to this same report, presented to King Mohammed VI on Saturday, an average of 33.1% as the female activity rate by 2026, requires the creation of 404,000 net annual jobs just for women.
But the reality reveals the difficulty of achieving this objective, since the BAM report indicates that the national economy has created, in total, over the last five years, only 32,000 jobs per year, a figure that includes the two sexes.
The dilemma of integrating women into economic activity has always been one of the most important challenges for the Kingdom in terms of social and economic policies, since their exclusion from the labor market has very significant social, psychological and economic repercussions on countries in general.
In Morocco, women represent just over half of the population, or 18.2 million women in 2021, including around 13.8 million who are active in the labor market. However, the majority of these women are poorly qualified since 46.1% of them are illiterate and they are mostly absent from the labor market.
Figures reveal that four out of five women of working age are not active. A percentage that is constantly increasing despite the improvement in the level of education of women. A previous study by the High Commission for Planning (HCP) indicated that the structural weakness of women’s activity is linked to family responsibilities, such as raising children and household chores.
In 2021, the unemployment rate for women was around 16.8% nationally, and this rate reached 41.9% for young women aged 15 to 24, and 32.8% for those who had obtained higher degrees.
Thus, the BAM report underlined that the improvement of women’s participation in the labor market remains dependent in the first place on the provision of a strong and sustainable economic dynamism capable of absorbing the additional flows that may result from an improvement women’s activity rate, in addition to promotion and awareness-raising policies.
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