The 2024 General Population and Housing Census (RGPH 2024) and the demographic projections to 2040 from Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) together depict a profoundly reconfigured Morocco: faster urbanisation, structural ageing, more numerous yet smaller households, and a working-age population at its historical peak. These shifts run through every facet of public policy. They also run through the fundamentals of the real estate market, though this is less often discussed. This article looks at this lens, drawing on data recently published by the HCP.
Accelerating metropolisation and its effects on asset value
The 2024 census confirms a deep-rooted trend: 62.8% of Morocco’s population lived in urban areas in 2024, a share projected to reach 69.2% by 2040. Behind this national average, growth is concentrated in a limited number of territories. Five regions captured 86.2% of demographic growth between 2014 and 2024 and now account for 70.2% of the total population. This is not a balanced distribution: it is polarisation, with everything that implies for land pressure, siting costs and the differentiation of local real estate markets.
Coastal concentration reinforces this dynamic. Growth is concentrated along an already dense coastal arc, where available land is shrinking and infrastructure is gradually reaching saturation. In this context, an asset’s value can no longer be read solely from its own characteristics: its territorial trajectory becomes a determining factor, both for anticipating rental demand and for estimating medium-term resale value.
HCP projections also point to demographic growth in several mid-sized cities, beyond the major metropolitan areas. This signal warrants close real estate attention: these markets remain underserved, siting costs are structurally lower, and a local demand base is building precisely where professional supply is still limited. For an investor focused on long cycles, this is ground that merits serious analysis.
The demographic window: a time-bound investment argument
The HCP defines a “demographic window” as a period during which the working-age population reaches a historic peak relative to dependent populations, creating a temporary labour surplus favourable to economic growth. In Morocco, this window opened in the early 2000s. Projections place its closing around 2040, with the working-age population reaching 24.8 million before stabilising and then declining.
Age structure of Morocco’s population – Population pyramids: 1971, 2004, 2024 and 2050 (HCP)
For corporate real estate, this cycle has a direct implication. An expanding workforce supports demand for offices, business premises and logistics real estate. It also feeds residential demand in employment areas.
The 2040 horizon is not an abstract deadline. Real estate cycles are long: an acquisition made today, depreciated over fifteen or twenty years, will be sold or repositioned in a markedly different demographic context. For investment decisions made over this long timeframe, the trajectory of the working-age population is a parameter worth factoring into the analysis.
Ageing: a structuring signal for tomorrow's assets
The 2024 census documents an unprecedented acceleration in the ageing of Morocco’s population. The population aged 60 and over rose from 2.4 million in 2004 to 5.1 million in 2024, a 59% increase over the 2014-2024 decade alone. HCP projections put this figure at 7.9 million by 2040, then around 10 million by 2050. Around 2040, the share of seniors in the total population will match that of under-15s: two curves crossing for the first time in the country’s demographic history.
On the real estate market, this signal has yet to be reflected. Assets dedicated to seniors (adapted residences, intermediate structures between the home and specialised institutions, healthcare real estate) are nearly absent from Morocco’s real estate supply. Comparison with countries that went through this transition before Morocco is instructive, provided it is not applied mechanically.
Moroccan society holds a distinct cultural relationship with its elders: care within the extended family remains the dominant norm. HCP data confirms this: 42% of older people live in an extended household, and this model will not disappear in the short term. But it is under pressure. Later marriage, shrinking household size and the growing geographic mobility of the working population are gradually weakening this arrangement. An intermediate demand is taking shape, without the matching real estate supply yet in place to meet it.
For an investor, this gap is precisely what merits attention. The assets that will meet senior demand in 2035 are being designed today, in a market that remains largely uncontested.
The transformations documented by the HCP depict a structurally different Morocco by 2040. Accelerating metropolisation, peak working-age population, structural ageing: these dynamics raise concrete questions for investors and companies on asset selection, the reading of territories and the timing of decisions.
This demographic lens does not replace market analysis. It offers a long-term reference point, to be factored in alongside other parameters, in decisions that play out over time.