Assessing urban mobility behaviors and inequalities in Morocco’s major cities through socio-economic indicators: Cases of Casablanca and Rabat

Mobility inequalities in North African cities remain poorly documented, despite the rapid urban growth and deep socio-spatial disparities that characterize the region. This study examines how income, gender, age, employment status, and residential location shape mobility inequalities in Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco's two major urban areas. Rather than comparing outcomes across cities, it focuses on inequality gradients within each context, drawing on household travel surveys covering >36,000 individuals and combining descriptive socioeconomic profiling across eighteen demographic configurations with multivariate inferential models. The results reveal structured and cumulative forms of disadvantage in both cities. Income shapes modal hierarchies and spatial reach, with low-income households relying primarily on slower and less flexible modes of transport. Women display higher immobility rates, more restricted spatial reach, and greater reliance on walking and taxis. The interaction between gender and age provides formal statistical evidence of the intersectional vulnerability of older women, whose risk of immobility exceeds the additive effects of either factor considered separately. Peripheral residence exacerbates these disadvantages, particularly when combined with low income. These findings highlight the need for policies that treat gender, income, ageing, and territorial disparities as interconnected - rather than parallel - dimensions of urban inequality in cities of the Global South.