HCP: Women Constitute More Than Half of the Population of Morocco
By Mohamed Hikal
Morocco News Tribune
Taroudant , Morocco| According to High Commission for Planning (Haut Commissariat au Plan HCP), 16.5 million is the number of women in Morocco in 2012, which means that 50.9 per cent of the whole population is females.
The press release that came out on the occasion of Women’s Day 2013 also revealed that 48.9 percent are under 15 while 52.9 are 60 and over.
Women tend to live longer than men. Their life span was 76 years back in 2010 (66.4 in 1987). This implies that females seem to live about 1.8 year longer than men. This is attributed to the amelioration in living conditions, low infant mortality rates and lower fertility rates, HCP said.
Among 1000 female born subjects, the number of those who die before their first birthdays fell from 70 to 27 between the years 1987 and 2010. Meanwhile, male mortality decreased from 81 to 33, the press release confirmed.
As for fertility, the rate was 4.5 children per woman in 1987 and 2.2 in 2010. This decrease was considerable in rural areas. The rate fell from 5.8 to 2.7 (2.8 to 1.8 in urban areas) in the same period of time, HCP added.
These promising numbers are due to the shrinking rates of early marriage. 20 per cent of females married between 15 and 19 in 1982 while only 9 per cent started their marital life in 2010. For those between 20 and 24 years, the rate dropped from 60 in 1982 to 38 in 2010, HCP said.
Many factors contributed to these outcomes namely females schooling and literacy.
However, women conditions are still precarious. Female literacy and access to jobs stay limited. Working women represent the quarter of the whole active population. More and more women are jobless in comparison to males. (9.9 per cent compared to 8.7 for men in 2012).
The longer life span of women as well as the age difference between husbands and wives leads to the fact that female spouses outlive their husbands and therefore have to struggle and manage their own lives on their own.
One woman out of five was considered head of her family in 2012 when it was only 15 per cent in 1994. Among these women about 22 per cent live on their own, 54 per cent are widows and 74 per cent are inactive and unemployed, HCP said.
It is worth mentioning that on the occasion of Women’s Day, HCP (Haut commissariat au plan) publish yearly statistics and numbers regarding women situation on October the 10th.
These statistics cover issues such as poverty, education, demography and employment.
