Moroccans in the Netherlands

Moroccans in the Netherlands (Arabic: المغاربة في هولندا, Dutch: Marokkaanse Nederlanders, also known as Dutch-Moroccans) are Dutch citizens of Moroccan origin. They consist of immigrants from Morocco and their descendants, and form the second largest ethnic group in the Netherlands.^[6][7]

Dutch-Moroccans

المغاربة في هولندا (Arabic) Marokkaanse Nederlanders (Dutch)
Total population
419.272^[1] (2022) c. 2.4% of the Dutch population
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly Randstad (70%), North Brabant, Limburg (16%) and Sint-Maarten (14%)
Languages
Berber (86%), Moroccan Arabic (14%), Dutch^[2]
Religion
Predominantly Islam (98%) (Statista Survey)^[3] Minority: Nonreligious (2%), Christianity (1%) (Statista Survey)^[4]^[5]
Related ethnic groups
Moroccans in Belgium, Moroccans in Germany

Migration history

Moroccans were not much represented in the first major postwar wave of migration to the Netherlands from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, which consisted mostly of people from the Netherlands' former colonies. However, they began to migrate in larger numbers during the second wave; between 1965 and 1973, one hundred thousand Turks and Moroccans came to the Netherlands, and an additional 170,000 from 1974 to 1986.^[8] Earlier arrivals consisted of "guest workers", whose recruitment and admission was governed by a bilateral treaty signed in 1969.^[9] From the 1970s, the number arriving under family reunification schemes became more significant.^[10] Around half originated from the mountainous Rif region.^[11]

According to The Netherlands Institute for Social Research annual report, marriages in 2001 between Moroccan immigrants and native Dutch were rare, accounting for only 5% of marriages. A 90% share of the marriages were to the same ethnic group and 2/3 of the spouse was a "marriage migrant" from the country of origin.^[12] Since stricter legislation was adopted in 2004, marriage immigration has decreased considerably.^{[citation needed]}

Demographic characteristics

As of 2009^[update], statistics of the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek with regards to people of Moroccan origin showed:

• 166,774 persons of first-generation background (88,084 men, 78,690 women)
• 174,754 persons of second-generation background (88,563 men, 86,191 women), of which:
  • 23,255 persons with one parent born in the Netherlands (11,911 men, 11,344 women)
  • 151,499 persons with both parents born outside of the Netherlands (76,652 men, 74,847 women)

For a total of 353,987 persons (176,647 men, 164,881 women). This represented roughly 51% growth over the 1996 total of 225,088 persons. The population has shown an annual increase since then.^[13]

As of 2011, 16% of male youths under 25 years of age in Amsterdam is Dutch-Moroccan.^[14]

Number of Moroccans in larger cities
#	City	People
1.	Amsterdam	77,210
2.	Rotterdam	44,164
3.	The Hague	31,455
4.	Utrecht	30,656
5.	Almere	7,871
6.	Tilburg	6,100
7.	Eindhoven	5,907
8.	Breda	5,712
9.	Nijmegen	2,046
10.	Groningen	1,266

Education

According to the SCB's 2005 Annual Report on Integration, most first-generation Moroccan migrants had a very low level of education, with many of them having had little or no schooling at all. In addition, many Moroccan "marriage migrants" who arrived in the Netherlands by marrying an immigrant already living in the country, as well as the "in-between-generation" of migrants who arrived while aged 6–18, have a low education. This has resulted in an on average poorer command of the Dutch language among these groups.^[12]

While almost half of Dutch and Iranian-origin pupils attend higher secondary education (Hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs or havo) or pre-university education (Voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs or vwo), only a fifth of Moroccan pupils did so in 2005.^[12]

Religiosity

Main article: Islam in the Netherlands

According to a 2018 survey using 2015 data, a very high proportion of Moroccans regard themselves as Muslim which together with Turks represented two thirds of all Muslims in the country. The fraction self-identifying as Muslims is higher among those with Moroccan ancestry (94%) than those with Turkish ancestry (86%). The fraction remained constant in the Moroccan group from 2006 to 2015, while it declined in the Turkish group from 93% to 86% during the period.^[15]

Religious behaviour and religious attitudes among Moroccan Muslims 15 years and older, by origin, 2015^[15]	%
Regards self as Muslim	94
Non-religious	5
Visits mosque at least weekly	37
Prays five times a day	78
Fasted every day during Ramadan	87
Eats halal everyday	93
Wears the headscarf (women)	78
My faith is an important part of who I am	96
I wouldn't like it if my daughter married someone from another faith	63
Muslims should be able to live in accordance with the rules of Islam	66

Crime rate

In 2015, individuals with a Moroccan background were roughly five times as likely to have been suspected of a crime compared to the native Dutch: 4.64% to 0.83% (the ratio has not been standardised for age). Of the first generation 2.5% was a crime suspect and, of the second generation, 7.4%; of all males almost 7.8% and women 1.34%. For Moroccans aged 18–25, one in ten have been suspected of a crime. For non-Western immigrants in general, the second generation has a higher crime rate than the first generation. The crime rate for Dutch as well as immigrants from a number of non-Western countries almost halved in the 2005-2015 period.^[16]

Culture

"I know my friends from the street," a 2002 Verweij-Jonker Institute report on leisure time of Dutch Turks and Dutch Moroccans, stated that Dutch Moroccans tend to make few new contacts from the street, tend to spend leisure time with members of the same ethnicity and sex, and have leisure activities heavily influenced by "Moroccan culture".^[17] Frank Buijs did a 1993 study of young Moroccan men in the Netherlands. He found that young men prefer attending "Moroccan parties" over other types of parties since they are able to meet other Moroccans and consider the parties to be "fun".^[18]

Trees Pels' 1982 literature study of Dutch-Turks and Dutch-Moroccans concluded that, of both groups, due to socio-cultural factors, girls "infrequently" participated in leisure activities.^[18]

In the 1990s, several organizations were established to encourage and promote Dutch Moroccan cultural productions. In 1996 Hassan Bousetta concluded that the Dutch Moroccan community received little support from the Dutch government in some of its artistic and cultural expressions. Bousetta concluded that, in the words of Miriam Gazzah, author of "Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth," "the state's policy aimed at political emancipation of Moroccans obstructed rather than promoted the production of new or innovative cultural and artistic developments."^[18]

LGBT-related attitudes

See also: LGBT rights in the Netherlands and Societal attitudes toward homosexuality

Laurens Buijs, Gert Hekma, and Jan Willem Duyvendak, authors of the 2011 article 'As long as they keep away from me': The paradox of antigay violence in a gay-friendly country, explained that members of three ethnic groups, Dutch-Moroccans, Dutch-Antilleans, and Dutch-Turks, "are less accepting towards homosexuality, also when controlled for gender, age, level of education and religiosity."^[19]

Police records reveal that perpetrators of anti-gay violence in Amsterdam are as often native Dutch as they are Dutch-Moroccan, but Buijs et al. said Dutch-Moroccans "are over-represented as suspects" because 16% of male youth under 25 are Dutch-Moroccan compared to 39% of male youth under 25 being native Dutch.^[14] The Party for Freedom (PVV) had stated that "The perpetrators of antigay violence in the big cities are almost always Muslims, almost always Moroccans."^[14] Buijs et al. say that overrepresentation of Dutch-Moroccans in statistics of antigay violence recorded by Dutch police is not primarily caused by their religion but "more likely the result of their low social-economic position, combined with the fact that their family networks are less tight, and their upbringing less strict, than for example those of Dutch-Turks."^[20] Buijs et al. say that the lack of tight family networks and the more lax upbringing "draws the Dutch-Moroccans, more often than youngsters from other groups, away from their homes and schools to public spaces, where they learn to live according to the tough and hyper-masculine codes of the culture of the street."^[20]

Notable people

Main pages: List of Moroccan Dutch people and Category:Dutch people of Moroccan descent

• Ahmed Aboutaleb, first Moroccan-Dutch mayor of Rotterdam^[21]
• Ibrahim Afellay, football (soccer) player
• Karim El Ahmadi, football (soccer) player
• Najib Amhali, comedian
• Nordin Amrabat, football (soccer) player
• Khadija Arib, Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives
• Ali B, hip-hop artist^[22]
• Abdelkader Benali, novelist, columnist
• Khalid Boulahrouz, football (soccer) player
• Salah Edin, hip hop artist
• Mounir El Hamdaoui, football (soccer) player
• Imaan Hammam, fashion model
• John van den Heuvel, crime journalist^[23]
• Badr Hari, kickboxer^[24]
• Zakaria Labyad, football (soccer) player
• Adam Maher, football (soccer) player
• Ahmed Marcouch, mayor of Arnhem
• Noussair Mazraoui, football (soccer) player
• Rajae El Mouhandiz, singer, recording artist, producer & poet
• Abdelhak Nouri, former soccer player
• R3hab, DJ
• Hakim Ziyech, football (soccer) player
• Abdenasser El Khayati, football (soccer) player^[25]

See also

•  Morocco portal
•  Netherlands portal

• Morocco–Netherlands relations
• North African communities of Paris
• Moroccan diaspora
• Immigration to the Netherlands

References

1. "CBS Statline". from the original on 11 November 2017. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
2. "Pays-Bas: situation géographique et administrative". axl.cefan.ulaval.ca. from the original on 31 May 2022. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
3. Er zijn minder moslims in Nederland, maar de overgebleven groep wordt steeds orthodoxer 2018-07-18 at the Wayback Machine 'There are less Muslims in the Netherlands, but the remaining group is becoming more orthodox', Trouw, 8 juni 2018
4. "Religious identification of the Moroccan-Dutch community in the Netherlands in 2015*". Statista Research Department. 6 May 2022. from the original on 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2020. This statistic displays the religious identification of the Moroccan-Dutch community in the Netherlands in 2015. Of the Moroccan-Dutch participants taking part in this survey, roughly 95 percent stated to consider themselves Muslims. One percent answered to see themselves as Christians.
5. Er zijn minder moslims in Nederland, maar de overgebleven groep wordt steeds orthodoxer 2018-07-18 at the Wayback Machine 'There are more Muslims in the Netherlands, and the remaining group is becoming more orthodox', Trouw, 8 juni 2018
6. Gazzah 2008, p. 11
7. Dibbits 2007, p. 11
8. Dibbits 2007, p. 14
9. El Bardaï 2003, p. 322
10. El Bardaï 2003, p. 327
11. Gazzah 2008, p. 12
12. . scp.nl (in Dutch). pp. 2–4. Archived from the original on 16 September 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
13. CBS 2009; the year 1996 is the earliest for which statistics are available online
14. Buijs, et al., p. 634.
15. Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (7 June 2018). "De religieuze beleving van moslims in Nederland – Publicatie – Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau". scp.nl (in Dutch). pp. 77–79. from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
16. (PDF). The Hague: Statistics Netherlands. 2016. pp. 14–15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 May 2018.
17. Gazzah, p. 34.
18. Gazzah, p. 33.
19. Buijs, et al., p. 648.
20. Buijs, et al., p. 642-643.
21. Wanders, John, "Aboutaleb burgemeester Rotterdam", De Volkskrant (in Dutch), from the original on 9 February 2010, retrieved 11 November 2009
22. Dibbits 2007, p. 16
23. Wie was het eerste op de crime scene? John natuurlijk 28 February 2023 at the Wayback Machine, de Volkskrant, 3 december 2013
24. "K1-vechter Badr Hari wil 'als gigant terugkeren'" 6 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 25 November 2010, Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch)
25. "QPR SIGN ABDENASSER EL KHAYATI". QPR. from the original on 20 December 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2019.

Sources

• Buijs, Laurens, Gert Hekma, and Jan Willem Duyvendak. "." Sexualities. December 2011 vol. 14 no. 6. p. 632-652. doi: 10.1177/1363460711422304. Available at SAGE Journals.
• El Bardaï, Omar (July 2003), (PDF), in Kabbaj, Khadija (ed.), Marocains de l'Extérieur, Rabat: Fondation Hassan II pour les Marocains Résidant à l’Etranger, pp. 322–373, ISBN 9954-400-19-2, archived from the original (PDF) on 23 May 2006, retrieved 24 March 2009()
• Dibbits, Hester (2007), "Moroccan Dutch Boys and the Authentication of Clothing Styles", in Margry, Peter Jan; Roodenburg, Herman (eds.), Reframing Dutch culture: between otherness and authenticity, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., pp. 11–36, ISBN 978-0-7546-4705-8
• Gazzah, Miriam (2008), Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth, ISIM Dissertations Series, Amsterdam University Press, ISBN 978-90-8964-062-8
• Population by origin and generation, 1 January, The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2009, retrieved 27 October 2009

Further reading

• 'Marry in haste repent at leisure' for young Dutch Moroccans." Radio Netherlands Worldwide. 22 January 2013.