INTERNAL MIGRATION IN MOROCCO: EXAMINATION OF STRUCTURAL DETERMINANTS

Statement of the Problem. The major objective of this dissertation is to analyse how population movement began in the development process, and to define the principal determinants of internal migration. There is a striking internal population disequilibrium in Morocco with the greatest urban concentration in 2 or 3 main cities. Import substitution industrialization and capital intensive in rural economic promote urban concentration and out-migration from rural areas. This pattern is reinforced by a stagnant economy and concentration of ownership of the means of production, which accelerate the rural exodus of the population. Migration is determined chiefly by two factors: (a) the world system (W.S.), affects, in numerous ways, the economic, social, spatial and political structure of national development and the population distribution. (b) economic stagnation, the modernization of some activities, and the concentration of ownership of the means of production in some sectors accelerate the migration process directly or indirectly. Methodology. The W.S. approach proposed here is a methodology, a point of departure and an initial hypothesis. Four areas of discussion are adopted in relation to this approach: the national planning strategy and distribution of population, and the implications of the agricultural and the industrial sectors. Finally, my hypothesis is tested on the basis of the center-periphery analysis by Friedmann (1966) and Galtung (1971). In summary, this study is a macro-analysis of out-migration from rural areas. This is in contrast with a micro-analysis approach that usually focuses on the migrants from point i to point j. Findings. (1) The domination of and the expansion into the peripheral by the world system have significant impact and consequences for labor migration in Morocco. (2) There is no vertical structure of social production: that is, the linkage effects have not changed and cannot change in spite of the use of capital intensive techniques in some branches of the national economy. (3) Internal migration is intimately related to the spatial distribution of economic opportunities, to the division of labor, and to the presence of services