Moroccan migrations: Transformations, transitions and future prospects

About this workshop

Over the second half of the 20^th century, Morocco has become one of the world’s major emigration countries. Despite increasing immigration restrictions since the early 1970s, Moroccan emigration has shown a striking persistence and has become more diversified, both in terms of destination countries and origin regions within Morocco. Focusing first on France, Moroccan emigration turned towards southern Europe in the 1990s and more recently to North America, especially for skilled migration. Since 1995, Morocco has over taken Turkey as the main source of non-EU migrant labour.

However, Morocco’s role in the Euro-African migration system and its migration status started to change at the beginning of the 21st century. One the one hand, the Global Economic Crisis has slowed Moroccan emigration, while on the other hand, it seems to be evolving into a destination country for migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and elsewhere. The growing presence of immigrants confronts Moroccan society with an entirely new set of social and legal issues typical for immigration countries, and the latest decisions taken by Morocco in terms of migration policy confirms a growing official awareness of this change in status.

The objectives of this workshop is to link the empirical analysis of Moroccan migration to contemporary migration theories, to increase the understanding of the nature and drivers of Moroccan migration, and to amend and improve existing migration theories, in which the Moroccan migration experience has remained remarkably absent.