Cities through a “gender lens”: a golden “urban age” for women in the global South?

Abstract

Although urban women generally enjoy some advantages over their rural counterparts, a range of gender inequalities and injustices persist in urban areas that constrain their engagement in the labour market and in informal enterprises and inhibit the development of capabilities among younger women. These include unequal access to decent work, human capital acquisition, financial and physical assets, intra-urban mobility, personal safety and security, and representation in formal structures of urban governance. But the nature of these varies for different groups of women, not only on account of poverty status and where they live in the city, but also according to age, household characteristics, degree of engagement in income-generating activities and so on. This paper reviews what we have learnt from the literature on gender and urban development. It discusses disparities in access to education and vocational training and to land and housing ownership through a "gender lens". It considers service deficiencies and associated time burdens, which limit income generation among women. Violence and gender, and gender divisions in access to different spaces within the city and in engagement in urban politics, are also covered. These factors cast doubt on whether women's contributions to the prosperity often associated with urbanization are matched by commensurate returns and benefits.

Exploring the “feminisation of poverty” in relation to women’s work and home-based enterprise in slums of the Global South

“…One case in point is where dwellings lack mains-supplied water, and thereby force women to collect this indispensable resource from public standpipes, wells, boreholes, rivers, or storage drums served by private tankers. Even if journeys are short in terms of distance, they may entail; an inordinate length of time to undertake when it comes to traversing inhospitable terrain, carrying heavy vessels, and/or queuing at communal outlets (Chant, 2013). At communal sources, in turn, women frequently have to compete with one another for space, or in taking turns to fill buckets from neighbourhood faucets, exacerbating the stress and conflict entailed in routine chores (Miraftab, 2001).…”

“…Another is that slum-dwelling women usually have extremely heavy reproductive time burdens to contend with (Chant, 2013;Tacoli, 2012). Despite limited quality research on service provision and women's time poverty (Morrison et al, 2010), evidence from small-scale qualitative studies suggests that gender-inequitable time burdens resulting from service deficits are severe, and impose a range of direct and indirect constraints on women's ability to participate in economic activities ( Chant, 2007b).…”

Climate Change Vulnerabilities of Woman in Bangladesh

“…In developing countries, women have lower participation in labor force and mostly they hold lower paid and insecure job than man (Chant, 2013;Scott, 2014).Women are mainly employed in informal sector that is worst victim by climate change related disasters (WEDO, 2008). This is accelerated by women's unequal access to economic resources including income and property rights.…”

Políticas Públicas Urbanas para quem? Uma perspectiva de gênero

“…Entretanto, existem dois principais pontos de vista que propagam os benefícios da vida urbana: um deles é que as cidades estão associadas a oportunidades de geração de riqueza, concomitantemente à ideia de que as mulheres urbanas supostamente desfrutam de maiores oportunidades sociais, econômicas, políticas e liberdades do que, por exemplo, as mulheres do meio rural. Contudo, são visíveis as disparidades de gênero no trabalho assalariado, no direito de posse, o acesso e acumulação de ativos, segurança pessoal e segurança em geral, mostrando que as mulheres são muitas vezes as últimas a serem beneficiadas desta prosperidade (CHANT, 2013). Alguns destes estudos urbanos já evidenciam a experiência e utilização das cidades, percebida de maneiras distintas por mulheres e homens e que, apesar das conquistas femininas, as mulheres ainda são marginalizadas.…”