Morocco’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.97 children per woman in 2024, dropping below the generational replacement threshold of 2.1 for the first time in the country’s demographic history, according to a study published by France’s Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques (INED). The finding marks a structural turning point: below the replacement level, the population renews itself more slowly, with a gradual reduction in the number of births that will compound over time as the age pyramid adjusts. Among its Maghreb neighbors, Morocco stands out for the regularity and consistency of its fertility decline — unlike Algeria and Tunisia, which experienced episodes of increase during the 2000s and 2010s, Morocco has followed a more continuous downward trajectory without a meaningful rebound.
The primary driver of the decline, the INED study finds, is the expansion of contraceptive use rather than later marriage. Seventy percent of married women aged 15 to 49 in Morocco now use a contraceptive method — compared with approximately 40 percent in the 1990s — with modern methods accounting for 58 percent, including the pill, intrauterine devices, injections, implants, and sterilization. Significantly, the average age of women at first marriage has actually fallen, not risen: from 26.3 years in 2004 to 24.6 years in 2024. For men, it has risen slightly, from 31.2 to 32.4 years. What has changed is not when couples marry but how many children they choose to have once married.
The peak of fertility in Morocco remains concentrated among women aged 25 to 29, and the average age at motherhood has stayed stable at around 30 years. The shift in fertility behavior reflects a broader social context: the cost of living, the cost of education, the lengthening of studies, and the difficulty of accessing stable employment all weigh on family decisions in ways that a generation ago they did not. As the study frames it, couples no longer ask only how many children they want, but under what conditions they can raise them.
The demographic implications are significant. People aged 60 and above already represent 13.8 percent of Morocco’s population in 2024. With fewer births, the ageing process will accelerate in the coming years, increasing pressure on health, pension, employment, and social protection systems. The timing of this shift — coinciding with Morocco’s structural economic transformation, its 2030 World Cup hosting, and its ambitious New Development Model — makes the management of the demographic transition a strategic planning imperative.
The data point also illuminates a longstanding pattern in the relationship between female education, economic opportunity, and fertility. Morocco’s investment in girls’ education over the past two decades has produced measurable results in school enrolment, literacy, and professional participation. The fertility data confirm what demographers expect: as women gain access to education, healthcare, and economic activity, family size choices converge toward lower fertility levels observed across the developed world. Morocco’s crossing of the 2.1 threshold is, in this sense, a demographic signature of the very development progress that its public policies have been designed to produce.
