EUROMESCO Annual Conference: Towards more social justice and inclusiveness in the Mediterranean

June 9, 2022

Country Event – Morocco Youth and women’s inclusion in the labor market: challenges and opportunities for the Mediterranean region

The inclusion of young people and women is a major concern in several Mediterranean countries, particularly in the South and South-East. The labour markets of the countries on this shore share a number of features that exacerbate the difficulties of social and, above all, professional integration. In this regard, we cite the low demand for labour -which remains crucial in a context of advanced demographic transition- due in particular to the low employment growth, which has multiple origins, including the structure of the economies, their competitiveness and their weak economic and financial integration, at regional and global levels.

In Morocco, for example, the issue of professional integration of young people is well documented. That of women is much less studied. The existing diagnoses in this sense make it possible to identify a declining activity rate mainly caused by the low participation of women in economic activity, and the significant decline in the labour supply of young people. The low participation of women in economic activity has several origins, in particular the traditional distribution of roles in the household, the increasing and the longevity of their schooling (especially in urban areas), marital status, etc.. The clear decline in the share of young people in the labour force over the last decade is due in part to the extension of the duration of schooling ,a quasi-stabilization of the unemployment rate. There is a predominance of long-term unemployment and first-time job seekers  who often face a mismatch between employment and training. There is a large number of young people (about 30%) who are neither in school nor in employment.

In light of these insights, this event is an opportunity to discuss ways to improve the inclusion of youth and women in Morocco and in the Mediterranean region, and to contribute to the discussion in the broader framework of the EuroMeSCo Annual Conference on social justice and inclusion in the Mediterranean countries. To this end, the sessions will tackle the following issues:

  • What are the causes of the low inclusion of youth and women in the labour market in the Mediterranean?
  • Given the discussed causes, what should be the priority in terms of areas of action to improve the situation of youth and women in the labour market in the region?
  • On a more specific topic, what are the means to promote the social inclusion of young people deprived of education and training (in a NEET situation)?
  • With regard to the issue of labour demand, which remains particularly important, what could be the solutions to be brought in the short, medium and long term?
  • In Morocco, can we make the link between the constraints/solutions we have identified and the content of the new development model?


This country event falls into the scope of the project EuroMeSCo: Connecting the Dots, co-funded by the European Union and the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) and co-organised with the Policy Center for the New South

 

Disponible aussi en français : 

 

 

 

Speakers
Rim Berahab
Senior Economist
Rim Berahab is Senior Economist at the Policy Center for the New South, which she joined in 2014. She is currently working on themes related to energy issues and their impacts on economic growth and long-term development. Her research areas also cover trade and regional integration challenges in Africa. Previously, she has also worked on questions related to gender inequalities in the labor market of North African countries. Rim spent three months at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2016, in the Commodities Unit of the Research Department. She holds a State Engineering degree from the National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics (INSEA). ...
Karim El Aynaoui
Executive President
Karim El Aynaoui is Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South. He is also Executive Vice-President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Dean of its Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences Cluster.   Karim El Aynaoui is an economist. From 2005 to 2012, he worked at the Central Bank of Morocco where he held the position of Director of Economics, Statistics, and International Relations. At the Central Bank of Morocco, he was in charge of the Research Department and equally a member of the Governor’s Cabinet. Previously, he worked for eight years at the World Bank as an Economist for its regional units of the Middle East and North Africa and Africa.   Karim El Aynaoui has published books and journal articles on macroeconomic issues in developing countr ...
Aomar Ibourk
Senior Fellow
Aomar Ibourk, is a professor of quantitative methods and social economics at the Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech, an economist, as well as Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, who focuses on Applied econometrics, labor market, economics of education and development economics. He is also the director of GRES (Economic and Social Research Group) at the same university. His research focuses on econometric methodologies applied to social sciences (labor economics, economics of education and Development).  Mr. Ibourk's doctoral thesis looks into the "Contribution to Econometrics through the Labor Market Matching Process: Macro and Microeconometric Approaches to the Moroccan Labor Market." ...
Youssef Tobi
International Relations Specialist
Tobi Youssef has joined the Policy Center for the New South in 2017. He is currently working on Politics and Governance in the Maghreb Region; his areas of expertise are geopolitics, political risk and nation building. Youssef Tobi obtained a Master Degree at Sciences Po Lyon  where he wrote two thesis on “ the role of Moroccan Bank in Africa, a non-state actor in service of the Diplomacy”  and the“ Chasm between the mediatic and associative representation of refugees : a case study”.  Prior to working at the Think tank, Tobi Youssef participated in a Social Entrepreneurship Project in Beirut, Lebanon and conducted an internship in a NGO based in Marseille where he assisted refugees and helped raise funds. ...

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