THEME: Poverty and social attitudes encourage the out-migration of male and female rural youth.

Out-migration of rural youth is a common phenomenon that affects all regions and most countries. An IFAD study of survival, change and decision-making, conducted in three villages in the Oujda Province of Eastern Morocco, illustrates the underlying dynamics of this phenomenon. All three villages are relatively isolated and with inadequate infrastructure or services. Two of the three, Elhouafi and Taghilast, are traditional, villages with limited participation in the market economy. Their natural resources are rapidly being depleted, with visible deforestation, fissured soil, the disappearance of fodder grasses and wild animals, and lower crop yields. The third, Oulad Lfqir, is somewhat better off, and mainly grows cash crops on irrigated land.

The population of the two poorer villages, Taghilast and Elhouafi is seriously decreasing as a result of out-migration. In contrast, the third, Oulad Lfqir, attracts people from other areas who are interested in sharecropping or looking for work. The typical migrant is a young man or woman pushed by both poverty and social pressures to migrate, and drawn by the attractions of a better life.

For young men, migration is a door to independence and maturity. Young men and women in Taghilast and Elhouafi acquire status and independence when they marry. Up until then, they are under the authority of their families. But in order to marry, young men need to have money to pay for the dowry and organize the marriage feast. Although one son in the family might help his father on a long-term basis, youth are generally not interested in the poor financial prospects offered by agriculture. Other income-generating opportunities, such as crafts or other types of self-employment, are apparently not considered options for the young. Wage labour opportunities are also restricted, as there is a surplus of labour in the region. Therefore, young men are constantly looking for work farther away, and the chance to emigrate. This migration speeds up their independence and also gives them a chance to help their families. Their families, and particularly their mothers, encourage their out-migration.

In the case of young women, the study found that their mothers encouraged them to marry city men so that they could escape rural drudgery. Physical work for women is seen as demeaning and of low status. Women aspire to stay in the home, and not have to collect water and fuel wood, and to be relieved from performing menial tasks such as processing of alfalfa, weaving mats and looking after animals. The rural women in the study viewed women who had gone to live in towns or larger rural centres as the lucky ones. However, most young women, and men, are ill prepared for city life. Literacy is generally low, especially among women. Children's household and productive tasks often restrict their education. Women in the study said that they would like their daughters to go to school as "it would give them a chance to marry above their social class and live in the city".

Idealization of urban life and the social prestige awarded migration and the migrant also encourage out-migration. Migrants are seen as wealthy and of a higher status, which is only enhanced when they return for village celebrations, wearing better clothes and bearing gifts, or with money to enter into sharecropping arrangements. Having a son who is working in a town or a daughter who has married a town dweller adds to the status of a family. The study found that in Elhouafi, which is relatively near a town, a poor household was defined as one that lacked remittances from the wage labour of a son. In fact, all three villages considered household members who had moved out and 'now lived elsewhere' as being successful.

The out-migration of the young poses a threat to the future of agriculture. Offering viable alternatives to migration therefore becomes a useful area for intervention, since there is a labour surplus in the region. Most production activities would target young men, but more progressive values and ideas among the young might also offer opportunities for encouraging unmarried young women to undertake socially acceptable productive activities. Savings opportunities, for marriage and re-investment need to be associated with any credit.

Adapted from:

IFAD. 1997. Survival, Change and Decision-Making in Rural Households: Three Village Case Studies from Eastern Morocco. IFAD: Rome, February (paper based on original research by Dr Rahma Bourqia).