Maghreb rural-urban Migration : the movement to Morocco's towns

Abstract EN

Using data from national-level households survey, this study seeks to fill a gap in the migration literature by analyzing the determinant of rural migration in the case of Morocco.

In contrast to the evidence in the international migration literature, our results support the negative selection into internal migration.

Specifically, the probability of being a household without migrants decreases with educational level of the household and asset holdings compared to non-migrant households.

This suggests that rural migration can benefit home communities and family members left behind by increasing household income and thus easing liquidity constraints, thereby promoting investment in physical and human capital.

These results are in line with that related to the propensity to remit and the amount remitted that seemingly decrease with the individual level of education of household.