ABSTRACT
This book aims to highlight the gendered nature of housing processes and systems in an international context. The intention is to explore the dynamics of contemporary economic and social change and consider the implications for the relationship between women and the housing system in developed and emerging societies in Europe, the USA and East Asia. Whilst there has been a growing interest in comparative and international housing studies, the inclusion of a gender dimension is relatively underdeveloped compared to other policy arenas such as employment and education. Housing is often portrayed as a neutral system, mere ‘bricks and mortar’, that does not preference any one gender. It is assumed that housing policy and urban planning serves the needs of the whole society or community equally, and that the distribution of housing resources serves the needs of the whole family equally. This collection is concerned with exploring and deconstructing these assumptions through an analysis of the housing circumstances of women in developed and emerging societies, at a time of substantial economic and social change. It seeks to promote an approach to housing analysis that reinstates gender sensitivity in international and comparative housing studies. The focus is on the interface between housing and gender and how this socially constructed relationship manifests and transforms over time and space. Housing systems and opportunities are embedded within structured and institutionalised relations of power which are gendered. For example, in many countries the wider context of housing provision has been heavily influenced by attitudes surrounding the male breadwinner model’ whereby the male wage-earner provides for a dependent wife and children, supported by the notion of a ‘family wage’ (Land 1980; Pascall 1997). These and other perceptions reflect the structured and institutionalised relations of power which permeate the policy process and the wider world (Harrison 2001), the nature and dynamics are culturally contingent as will be demonstrated by the contributions to this collection.
