Casablanca — The National Social Support Agency (ANSS) has identified five distinct categories of households receiving Direct Social Assistance (ASD). According to officials, this approach enabled them to “refine the knowledge of beneficiary households and to outline the contours of typical profiles and their needs.” The study suggests that poverty and vulnerability in Morocco are far from homogeneous and require differentiated policy responses.
Using advanced clustering techniques, the ANSS grouped beneficiaries according to their real-life living conditions rather than solely by region, age, or gender. This new perspective offers a better understanding of the beneficiaries’ needs, allowing the agency to move beyond uniform assistance programs and prevent vulnerable households from falling into long-term poverty.
Representing 30.9% of ASD beneficiaries, the “Emerging Households” cluster is the largest of the five groups identified by ANSS, encompassing more than 1.2 million households. Consisting of nuclear families in rural areas headed by people in their forties, considered active working-age, these households are in a family-building phase affected by income instability.
Their vulnerability presents a “strong potential for reversibility” through economic integration, preschool education, and school support. Economic and social support is crucial at this stage to prevent them from falling further into structural poverty.
Meanwhile, 986,265 predominantly rural households headed by people in their fifties come under the second group, “Turning Point Families”, accounting for 25.2% of beneficiaries. As the label suggests, these households are facing a demographic transition resulting in increasing burdens related to rising household expenses, schooling, and professional integration of their adolescent and young adult children, and the parents’ lack of training and labor market integration.
The challenge is to support them through this pivotal period by offering them income-generating activities, access to training, and healthcare to ensure the future of younger generations and break any intergenerational transmission of poverty.
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The third and fourth groups highlight Morocco’s aging challenge. “The Stronger Together” profile gathers rural elderly couples living alone, who represent 24.8% of beneficiaries. They span 946,000 households characterized by a lack of retirement income and often limited mobility.
They are vulnerable due to aging and healthcare costs, making direct assistance with care services, home support, and social connection a safety net.
The fourth profile, referred to as “Empty Nests”, consists exclusively of elderly women living alone, whether widowed, single, or without dependent children. Representing 15.1% of beneficiaries, the group includes 584,168 households facing escalating social and economic vulnerability due to their isolation from immediate family support networks.
According to the ANSS, these women often live without the informal safety nets traditionally provided by family structures, making them particularly vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion. Their situation calls for enhanced social protection measures and improved access to basic services, including healthcare and community support, to safeguard their dignity and well-being.
The smallest cluster identified by the agency, “Left to Themselves”, accounts for 4% of beneficiaries and encompasses 156,936 individuals living alone, either men or women, primarily in peri-urban and rural areas. Existing on the margins of traditional family structures, members of this group face a combination of material hardship and social isolation.
For these beneficiaries, the ANSS points to the importance of targeted interventions aimed at preventing severe social exclusion. Such measures include economic integration programs, vocational training opportunities, and personalized social support designed to strengthen financial autonomy and social inclusion.
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Beyond the individual profiles, the agency says the classification reflects the “diverse realities” of households benefiting from ASD. Rather than viewing beneficiaries as a single category, the analysis reveals multiple forms of vulnerability linked to different stages of life, family structures, and socioeconomic circumstances.
The geographical distribution of the clusters also yielded a notable finding. Data presented by the agency show that all five profiles are present across Morocco’s twelve regions, albeit in varying proportions. The visual breakdown illustrates that while some regions record a higher concentration of certain profiles, no territory is defined by a single form of vulnerability.
For the ANSS, this finding reinforces the need to move away from uniform social support mechanisms toward more differentiated interventions tailored to the specific needs of each beneficiary group.
The agency argues that understanding these distinct realities will enable social workers to better target assistance and develop pathways toward greater social and economic inclusion.
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