Is international migration a cure for Moroccan unemployment?

Abstract

Recently, much research interest has been directed towards the impact of migration on the sending country. However, we think that this literature does not successfully analyse the effects of migration on unemployment and wage rates, especially in urban areas. It studies the effect of one kind of migration flow, mainly international migration, on the labour market in the country of origin and shows that international migration is able to reduce the unemployment rate and/or raise the wage rate. However, it is common to find sending countries simultaneously affected by inflows and outflows of workers. Using a detailed computable general equilibrium (CGE) model applied to the Moroccan economy, we show that if we simultaneously take into account Moroccan emigration to the European Union (EU), immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa into Moroccan urban areas and rural-urban migration, the impact on Moroccan urban labour market disaggregated by professional categories is ambiguous.

Surveying the Landscape of Labor Market Threat Perceptions from Migration: Evidence from Attitudes toward Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Morocco

“…Some high-skilled migrants arrive legally as public university students and then stay to work after their period of legal residency for schooling lapses (Berriane 2015: 586). Several studies noted the tendency of sub-Saharan migrants to cluster in the informal labor market, though this is difficult to measure (Karam and Decaluwé 2010: 504; Cherti and Collyer 2015: 598).…”

“…Studies of sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco show that some Moroccans fear that migrants depress wages. One study found that “sub-Saharan immigration to cities raises pressure on the urban labor market,” which cultivates perceptions of salary depression among Moroccans (Karam and Decaluwé 2010: 498). Perceptions of wage depression come from the fact that, as de Haas (2008) noted, Moroccans understand sub-Saharan migrants to hail from “substantially poorer origin countries” and thus would be willing to accept lower wages.…”

“…Sub-Saharan migrants arrive in Morocco with a variety of professional skill sets and education levels. According to secondary literature, common professions for migrants with lower skills include shoemakers, security guards, and laborers in masonry or construction work (Karam and Decaluwé 2010: 503). Others often work in the informal sector as unlicensed street vendors at marketplaces, selling household items, fruits, used clothing, and other goods (Alexander 2019b: 794).…”

Is Europe really the dream? Contingent paths among sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco

“…Up to and during the 1990s, the reverberations of economic crisis, structural adjustment and unemployment increased migration flows across the African continent. Earlier migrations to France, Germany and the Netherlands were spurred by the search for more lucrative work, but with urban unemployment rising in the early 1990s (Karam and Decaluwé 2010), Moroccans increasingly migrated for temporary and lowly paid work in Spain. In 1991, a regularization programme issued by the Spanish state legalized the stay of many Moroccan migrants.…”

“…After increasing pressure from Europe and the construction of border fences around the Spanish enclaves, the Moroccan state finally adopted a more restrictive migration regime in the late 1990s. Possibly this was also driven by domestic politics, as the urban unemployment rate peaked at 22 per cent in 1999 (Karam and Decaluwé 2010: 499).…”