End of Large Families: Why 70% of Married Moroccan Women Don’t Want More Children

In Morocco, the large family model is declining. According to initial results from the HCP’s 2025 National Family Survey, 66.8% of married women aged 15 to 49 say they don’t want additional children. In other words, nearly two out of three married women wish to limit the number of children they have.

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This trend is evident in both urban and rural areas. The refusal to have another child affects 67.4% of married women in urban settings and 65.7% in rural areas. The report thus emphasizes that this aspiration for a smaller family is no longer limited to major cities, but now extends across Moroccan society as a whole.

The difference is, however, very clear depending on family type. Women living in nuclear families are most likely to not want additional children, with 72.5% answering no. In extended families, this proportion drops to 49.6%. The HCP explains this gap by the fact that the extended family can help reduce constraints related to child-rearing and care.

The number of children already born also plays a decisive role. Among childless women, 90.5% wish to have one. But this desire drops to 48.8% among those who already have one or two children, then to 8.6% among those with three or four. Among women with five or more children, only 3.5% still want an additional child.

The reasons cited are primarily economic. Nearly half of married women who don’t want additional children, or 48.3%, cite financial constraints as the main factor. Personal choice comes next, with 32% of responses, followed by health problems, cited by 14.3%. The influence of family members remains very weak, at only 2.7%.

The report also shows that family planning is largely based on a couple’s decision. Among married women of childbearing age who use contraception, 85.7% say the decision was made by both spouses. Only 13% say they made the decision alone, while the husband alone is cited in only 1.1% of cases.

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Behind these numbers, the HCP outlines a profound transformation of the Moroccan family. The desire for children remains present, but it increasingly follows a logic of birth limitation, economic constraints, couple autonomy, and the pursuit of a more controlled family balance.