Synopses & Reviews
This collection is concerned with exploring the housing circumstances of women in developed and emerging societies in Europe, USA and East Asia, at a time of substantial economic and social change. Its 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 modela (TM) whereby the male wage-earner provides for a dependent wife and children, supported by the notion of a family wage.
These and other perceptions reflect the structured and institutionalised relations of power which permeate the policy process and the wider world, the nature and dynamics of which are culturally contingent as shown by the contributions to this collection. Each contribution considers the historically and geographically specific relations of power and the connection and intersection between the social relations of gender and other culturally relevant forms of social division such as ethnicity, class, age, with housing.
The chapters go on to identify the ways in which womena (TM)s housing opportunities have been constrained or enhanced, using empirical data on womena (TM)s labour market participation, wealth distribution, family formation and education. The book concludes with a focus on womena (TM)s housing opportunities and circumstances and considers potential threats and barriers to womena (TM)s housing access and security.
Synopsis
In the context of contemporary economic, political, social and cultural transformations, this book brings together contributions from developed and emerging societies in Europe, the USA and East Asia in order to highlight the nature, extent and impact of these changes on the housing opportunities of women.
The collection seeks to contribute to comparative housing debates by highlighting the gendered nature of housing processes, locating these processes within wider structured and institutionalized relations of power, and to show how these socially constructed relationships are culturally contingent, and manifest and transform over time and space.
The international contributors draw on a wide range of empirical evidence relating to labour market participation, wealth distribution, family formation and education to demonstrate the complexity and gendered nature of the interlocking arenas of production, reproduction and consumption and the implications for the housing opportunities of women in different social contexts. Worldwide examples are drawn from Australia, China, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and the USA.