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Rabat – Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) released a study showing the income inequalities between Moroccan rural and urban households. The HCP conducted the study between December 2019 and March 2020 so the data is not skewed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data revealed large disparities between the different strata of Moroccan society. Factors such as age, sex, education, and location of the household have an effect on earned income.
First, the data focused on the differences in average earned income between households in Morocco’s urban areas and rural areas. 50% of urban households earn an average monthly income of MAD 5,609 ($631) while rural households earn MAD 4,237 ($477), giving a combined median monthly income of MAD 5,133 ($578).
Those that reside in rural areas are more likely to be considered “low income” as 12.7% of Morocco’s society falls below the poverty line. Rural households account for 66.4% of the low-income population, or approximately 4.5 million people.
Based on the data, the age, sex, and educational history of the top earner contributes to determining the median monthly income.
Moroccan households in which men are the breadwinners yield a monthly income of MAD 8,200 ($923), while households with female breadwinners earn MAD 5,500 ($620).
In 2019, Morocco exceeded the Gini Index’s “socially tolerable threshold” for household income inequality with a recorded 46.4% rate of inequality, 4.4% over the maximum threshold.
Morocco’s government has enacted a variety of social welfare programs including the most recent restructuring of the social security program. Morocco will offer universal health care, new government allowances, update the current pension program, and increase benefits to those unemployed.
In October 2020, King Mohammed VI established a timeline for the new social welfare program predicting a completion date in 2025.
