While vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 were launched worldwide, a drama has been unfolding in the Moroccan countryside. It has been marked, over the last couple of decades, by rapid agrarian transformation, manifestations of which have included expanding irrigation frontiers and the increasing growth of high-value crops. These dynamics rely strongly on female agricultural wageworkers. Although they earn low wages, their income is crucial and is used to care for loved ones by paying for school fees, rent, electricity, and medicines. These workers, therefore, cannot afford to quit their jobs. However, most female wageworkers in Morocco are employed without a contract or social security cover. While working in an informal environment and living already in a precarious situation, little is known about how the pandemic has affected them. In this article, we seek to supply some of this information by drawing on the authors’ commitment over almost a decade of covering female wage-workers’ experiences in different agricultural regions in Morocco. Additionally, since March 2020, we have conducted 30 phone interviews with female laborers and farmers in the Saiss and in the coastal area of the Gharb and Loukkos. Using the pandemic as a focus, our results illustrate the inherent contradictions upon which Morocco’s agricultural boom has been founded. Although many female laborers are de facto heads of household or contribute in fundamental ways to the household income, they continue to be considered as secondary earners or as housewives, leading to low structural wages. Moreover, these women assume the prime responsibility for all domestic tasks, which are not economically recognized or valued. Consequently, they face new challenges in addition to their already precarious situations. Reduced work opportunities and limited state support have led to financial and psychological hardship which jeopardize their own and their family’s survival.
This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) falls at a time where women across the globe are being disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fisheries and aquaculture sectors have been particularly affected by the crisis. Although the data are limited,...
Based on 25 case studies from the global comparative study ‘GENNOVATE: Enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation’, this paper explores rural young women’s and men’s occupational aspirations and trajectories in India, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, and the...
Cet article présente et décrit le contenu d’une base de données construite à partir d’une enquête menée dans le gouvernorat de Sidi-Bouzid, situé dans le centre de la Tunisie. Sur ce territoire en transition, le secteur agricole, qui tient une...
L’économie tunisienne a subi de plein fouet les effets de la crise sanitaire Covid-19 et des mesures indispensables pour la juguler prises par les pouvoirs publics comme la fermeture des frontières et le confinement de la population. L’agriculture a dû...
This paper documents wages and working conditions for landless female and male agricultural labourers in Morocco. We found that higher-paid equipment-intensive tasks were predominantly assigned to men whereas women often performed lower-paid, time-intensive tasks. Women were systematically paid less than...
