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We study how slow-onset environmental changes impact the adaptive capacity of rural women living in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco. Given the immobility of many women in rural regions, we especially focus upon the internal migration aspirations of rural woman. In this way our study aims to shed light on the interrelationships between environmental change, gender relations and social and migration aspirations in a gradually environmentally degrading region. Based on Carling’s aspiration/ability model, we analyse how slow-onset environmental changes influence the internal migration aspirations and trajectories of rural women, taking into account important background factors such as household characteristics, land heritage systems and migration networks. Our study is based on 38 interviews with inhabitants of the Souss-Massa region of Morocco that (used to) work in the agricultural sector, of which 15 interviews were conducted with rural women. Our findings show the ambiguous role of slow-onset environmental changes in the development of migration aspirations of rural women in a Moroccan rural context and underscores that environmental changes should be taken into account in migration decision making processes, both for internal and international migration.

In the current study, we depart from migration biographies of first-generation Moroccan migrants living in Belgium to understand how environmental factors interfere in migration decision making and how its importance varies over life stages. Most Moroccan migrants came to Belgium as labor migrants or family “reunifers,” so little research has inquired whether and how environmental changes have played a role in making migration more appealing, at least during certain stages of people’s lives. By applying a case study approach to three selected Moroccan migrants’ biographies, we aim to meticulously demonstrate how peoples’ migration aspirations have gradually developed over the life course and cannot be pinned down to either natural, cultural, or socio-economic factors. Rather, they should be understood within the wider changing socio-economic and natural environment while considering the interplay of factors within these environments.