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Cities through a “gender lens”: a
golden “urban age” for women in the
global South? SYLVIA CHANT Sylvia Chant is Professor of
Development Geography
at the London School of
Economics and Political
Science, where she is
Director of the MSc
in Urbanization and
Development. She has
conducted research on
various themes relating to
Gender and Development
(GAD) in Mexico, Costa Rica,
Philippines and The Gambia.
Address: Department
of Geography and
Environment, LSE,
Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE; e-mail: s.chant@
lse.ac.uk
This paper draws
substantially from the lead
chapter prepared for UN−
Habitat’s State of Women in
Cities 2012/13 (see Chant,
Sylvia (2011), “Gender and
the prosperity of cities”,
Final draft of lead chapter
prepared for UN−Habitat
State of Women in Cities
2012/13, UN−Habitat,
Nairobi, as well as from
papers co-authored with
Kerwin Datu (see Chant,
Sylvia and Kerwin Datu
(2011a), “Urban prosperity
doesn’t automatically
mean gender equality”,
The Global Urbanist,
September, available at
http://globalurbanist.
com/2011/09/27/urbanprosperity-doesntautomatically-meangender-equality; also Chant,
Sylvia and Kerwin Datu
(2011b), “Women in cities:
prosperity or poverty? A 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.
KEYWORDS cities / gender / inequality / poverty / property / slums / space I. INTRODUCTION: URBAN PROSPERITY AND GENDER
That urbanization has been associated historically with an expansion in
economic, social and political opportunities for women is one plausible
reason why, in the context of increased celebration of the city as a generator
of wealth and well-being, the issue of gender and urban prosperity has
come to the fore, being the theme of UN−Habitat’s State of Women in Cities
2012/13. Yet notwithstanding that urban women enjoy some advantages
over their rural counterparts, barriers to female “empowerment” remain
widespread in the global South, especially among the urban poor.
Indeed, that several gender inequalities and injustices persist in urban
environments is highlighted all the more when considering prosperity in
conjunction with poverty. An analysis embracing both phenomena reveals
the frequently stark contrasts between women’s inputs to and benefits
from the accumulation of wealth in cities. On the one hand, women
make significant contributions to urban prosperity through a wide range Environment & Urbanization Copyright © 2013 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Vol 25(1): 9–29. DOI: 10.1177/0956247813477809 www.sagepublications.com 9 E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N of paid and unpaid labour, including building and consolidating shelter
and strategizing around shortfalls in essential services and infrastructure.
On the other hand, women often reap limited rewards in terms of
equitable access to “decent” work, human capital acquisition, physical
and financial assets, intra-urban mobility, personal safety and security,
and representation in formal structures of urban governance.
While it is arguably useful to deflect preoccupation with urban
poverty and to think about the wealth-generating capacity of cities,
especially given that macro level statistical data reveal a broadly positive
correlation between urbanization and per capita GDP,(1) there is rather less
evidence of this in developing regions, especially in Africa.(2)
Prosperity is not an inevitable outcome of urbanization, with poor
living standards coupled with socioeconomic disparities and lack of decent
work opportunities often associated with violence, crime, insecurity, and
mental and physical ill-health.(3) Although the United Nations Fund for
Population Activities notes that “…no country in the industrial age has ever
achieved significant economic growth without urbanization”, it also concedes
that “…the current concentration of poverty, slum growth and social disruption
in cities does paint a threatening picture.”(4)
Such portents are particularly applicable when viewed through a
“gender lens”, which calls for analysis that not only takes into account
socially constructed differences among women and men but also recognizes
that gender is a multi-dimensional and intersectional concept.(5) Thus, despite
the “win−win” view associated with “smart economics”(6) that “…economic
development and growth are good for gender equality, and that greater gender
equality is good for development”,(7) the fact that quantitative indicators of
gender equality bear little statistical correlation with urbanization and per
capita GNI(8) is perhaps no surprise. As Khosla reminds us, women form a
highly heterogeneous urban group:
“Urban women, while generally sharing specific gender interests
arising from a common set of responsibilities and roles, constitute a
fairly diverse group. There are elderly women, working women and
women whose major responsibility is in the domestic sphere. There
are also women who balance multiple roles at the same time. Poor
women living in slums and low-resource areas face disadvantages
which are very different from those faced by women from middleclass families. Slum dwellers also experience an unequal level of
service, women are doubly disadvantaged from poor access [sic].
Cities, especially large urban areas, also have more numbers of
women-headed households, single women living by themselves,
professional women who need to travel…”(9)
Aside from intersectionality with other criteria of social difference, the
multi-dimensionality alluded to in “gender lens” discussions is also
critical in helping to explain why women do not necessarily benefit
from urban prosperity. In line with Bradshaw’s contention that women’s
poverty is “…not only multi-dimensional but is also multi-sectoral…[and]…is
experienced in different ways, at different times and in different ‘spaces’”,(10) it
is necessary to recognize different dimensions of poverty such as income,
assets, time and power, as well as to consider how different, albeit porous
and interconnected, urban spaces – at domestic, community, citywide
and national levels − combine to disadvantage particular constituencies
of women.(11) 10 Vol 25 No 1 April 2013
need for multi-dimensional
and multi-spatial analysis”,
Paper presented at The City
in Urban Poverty Workshop,
University College London,
10−11 November). A major
debt is owed to Alice
Evans, Ralph Kinnear, Steve
Huxton, Chloë Last, Isik
Ozurgetem, Jeff Steller
and Lindsay Walton for
their invaluable research
assistance.
1. See, for example, Dobbs,
Smit, Remes, Manyika,
Roxburgh and Restrepo (2011);
also World Bank (2009).
2. UN−Habitat (2010c), pages
22−23.
3. Krujit and Koonings (2009);
also Rakodi (2008); Rodgers,
Beall and Kanbur (2011); and
UN−Habitat (2010c), page 3.
4. UNFPA (2007), page 1. 5. See Davids and van Driel
(editors) (2005); also Davids and
van Driel (2010).
6. Buvinic and King (2007).
7. Morrison, Raju and Singa
(2010), page 103.
8. See Chant (2011), Table 1.5,
pages 39−41; also Chant and
Datu (2011a). 9. Khosla (2009), page 7. 10. Bradshaw (2002), page 12. 11. See, for example, Massey
(1994); also Jarvis, Cloke and
Kantor (2009); and McDowell
(1999). A GOLDEN ‘URBAN AGE’ FOR WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH? 12. As outlined in Chant (2011);
also Chant and Datu (2011a);
and Chant and Datu (2011b). Understanding how gender inequalities in prosperity and poverty
emerge, play out and persist in urban areas is thus perhaps best approached
by taking a multi-dimensional, multi-sectoral and multi-spatial approach.(12)
At a minimum, this involves taking into account gender in relation to
urban demographics, divisions of labour, human capital, space, mobility
and connectivity, and power and rights. II. GENDER AND URBAN DEMOGRAPHICS
a. The feminization of urban populations 13. See Chant and Datu (2011b),
Table 1, page 3. 14. Khosla (2009), page 18. 15. Chant and McIlwaine (2009),
Chapter 3; also Tacoli and
Mabala (2010). 16. Tacoli (editor) (2006); also
Tacoli (2010).
17. Hughes and Wickeri (2011),
pages 837−838. 18. Chant and Datu (2011b),
Table 2, pages 13−15. Among a range of demographic processes pertinent to gender in cities is
that women are increasingly forming the majority urban population across
the global South. Although Latin America and the Caribbean stands out as
the main region where urban sex ratios have historically been feminized,
the majority of countries in Africa are now showing similar tendencies.(13)
Only in Asia, particularly South Asia, do men outnumber women in cities.
In India, for example, the urban sex ratio of 90 women per 100 men is
lower than the all-India figure of 93.3, and in large – “million plus” − cities,
which contain one-quarter of India’s urban population, there are only 86.1
women per 100 men.(14)
This partly reflects the legacy of male-selective urban migration, which
in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa has been attributed traditionally
to moral and physical restrictions on independent female movement,
virilocal marriage, the encouragement of young men to gain experience
in the city as a form of masculine “rite of passage” and the comparative
lack of employment opportunities for women.(15) Even if there is some
evidence that women are now gaining ground in urban labour markets,
upward trends in female migration also owe to rural women’s cumulative
disadvantage in land acquisition and inheritance coupled with economic
deterioration in the countryside and pressure on households to spread
risk.(16) Additional factors, noted by Hughes and Wickeri for Tanzania, are
that HIV-positive women are motivated to move to urban areas to gain
better access to medical treatment as well as to reduce stigmatization.(17)
Generally speaking, feminized urban sex ratios are at their most
pronounced in “older” cohorts (>60 years) and dramatically so among the
“older old” (>80 years). In Argentina, Chile, Botswana and South Africa,
for example, “older old” women outnumber their male counterparts by
nearly two to one, while in Malaysia and China the ratio is nearly 150
to 100.(18) What this means for gendered shares of urban prosperity is
not yet established, but given a common association between advanced
age and poverty, especially among women, this is a challenge to be faced
in light of ongoing trends, particularly as younger female cohorts will
undoubtedly be implicated in unpaid care provision for elderly people as
well as for the infirm. b. Cities of female-headed households?
Sex-selective demographic ageing, on account of its association with
widowhood, is likely to play a part in the fact that female-headed
households (FHHs) are on the rise, especially in urban areas, a phenomenon
which hitherto has been particularly marked in Latin America (Table 1). 11 E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N Vol 25 No 1 April 2013 TA B L E 1 Female-headed households as a proportion of all households in urban areas, Latin America
(1987−2009)
Year Urban
population as
percentage
of national
population Percentage
point change in
urbanization
(earliest to latest
year) Percentage
urban
households
headed by
women (FHHs) Percentage point
change in FHHs
(earliest to latest
year) Argentina 1990 87
92
56 +5 35
17 +14 Bolivia 2009
1989 +11 26 +9 +13 20
36 +16 +6 21
35 +14 21 2009 67 Brazil 1990
2009 74
87 Chile 1990
2009 83
89 Colombia 1991
2009
1990 66
75
51 2009
1997
2009 64
58
69 1990
2009
1995
2009 55
67
54
64 Honduras 1987
2009
1990 39
55
41 2007
1989 52
71 +11 34
16 +7 Mexico 2008
1993
2005
1991
2009
1990
2009
2002
2009
1990
2009
1990
2008 78
54
57
54
75
49
62
73
77
89
92
84
93 +7 27
35
40
26
34
20
37
23
26
25
38
22
34 +11 Costa Rica
Dom. Rep.
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela +11
+13
+11
+12
+10
+16 +3
+21
+13
+4
+3
+11 24
34
23
35
31
34
17
27
31
37
20
26
27 +10
+12
+3
+10
+6
+6 +5
+8
+17
+3
+13
+12 SOURCE: Compiled from various sources in Chant, Sylvia (2011), “Gender and the prosperity of cities”, Final
draft of lead chapter prepared for UN−Habitat State of Women in Cities 2012/13, UN−Habitat, Nairobi, 182
pages. 12 A GOLDEN ‘URBAN AGE’ FOR WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH? 19. For example, Bradshaw
(1995); also Folbre (1991).
20. UNFPA (2007), page 19. 21. See Chant (1997); also
Chant (2007a); and Medeiros
and Costa (2008). Over and above urban demographics such as the cumulative legacy
of female-selective urbanward migration in Latin America, driving factors
in the formation of FHHs here and elsewhere include greater access to
employment and independent earnings, reduced entanglement in and
control by patriarchal kinship systems,(19) and higher levels of urban
female land and property ownership.(20)
The greater autonomy and agency experienced by urban women
is likely to be pertinent not only to the formation of FHHs, but also in
helping to account for the fact that, despite conventional wisdom, there
is no clear or systematic relationship between FHHs and poverty in urban
areas.(21) c. Cities, gender and fertility 22. See Dyson (2010); also
UNFPA (2007).
23. The term “slum” usually has
derogatory connotations and
can suggest that a settlement
needs replacement or can
legitimate the eviction of its
residents. However, it is a
difficult term to avoid for at
least three reasons. First, some
networks of neighbourhood
organizations choose to identify
themselves with a positive use
of the term, partly to neutralize
these negative connotations;
one of the most successful
is the National Slum Dwellers
Federation in India. Second,
the only global estimates for
housing deficiencies, collected
by the United Nations, are for
what they term “slums”. And
third, in some nations, there
are advantages for residents
of informal settlements if
their settlement is recognized
officially as a “slum”; indeed,
the residents may lobby to get
their settlement classified as a
“notified slum”. Where the term
is used in this journal, it refers
to settlements characterized by
at least some of the following
features: a lack of formal
recognition on the part of local
government of the settlement
and its residents; the
absence of secure tenure for
residents; inadequacies in
provision for infrastructure
and services; overcrowded
and sub-standard dwellings;
and location on land less
than suitable for occupation.
For a discussion of more
precise ways to classify the
range of housing sub-markets Declining fertility is an integral aspect of the demographic transition
and has been regarded as central both to urbanization and to women’s
progressive “emancipation”.(22) Yet total fertility rates (TFRs) are commonly
higher among poorer groups of the population and in slums(23) than in the
wealthier urban neighbourhoods.(24) In urban Bangladesh, for example,
the TFR in slums is 2.5 compared to 1.9 for non-slum settlements.(25) Such
disparities owe to uneven information on reproductive health, unmet
needs for family planning, and slum/non-slum variations in the incidence
of early pregnancy and marriage.(26) In a range of countries this is often
associated with early school drop-out among girls (Figure 1), condemning
many to lower level jobs and remuneration throughout their lifetimes,
which underlines the fact that cities are not necessarily associated with
prosperity for all. III. GENDERED DIVISIONS OF LABOUR IN THE URBAN ECONOMY
Gender differences in prosperity also owe to divisions of labour in the
paid labour force as well as in the unpaid “care economy”.(27) While men’s
labour is largely concentrated in “productive”/income-generating work,
women undertake the major role in “reproductive”, unpaid labour, which
includes routine domestic chores as well as more specialized care work.(28)
Although women across the global South are engaged increasingly in paid
as well as unpaid work, this does not seem to have been accompanied
by a commensurate upturn in male participation in the latter.(29) Such
inequities reinforce, if not exacerbate, a female-biased “reproduction
tax”,(30) which, despite the stretching of women’s overall working hours,
combines with other discriminatory processes within the home and in the
labour market to impinge upon the type of income-generating activities
available to women, as well as leading to a lower value being placed on
women’s work in the market.(31) a. Gender divisions in remunerated work
In respect of gender divisions in remunerated work, it is well documented
that in the so-called “formal economy”, women tend only to feature
prominently in industry where multinational companies have opened
export-processing branch plants and favour female labour because they 13 E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N Vol 25 No 1 April 2013
through which those with
limited incomes buy, rent or
build accommodation, see
Environment and Urbanization
Vol 1, No 2, October (1989),
available at http://eau.sagepub.
com/content/1/2.toc and Mitlin
and Satterthwaite (2012).
24. For example, Chant and
McIlwaine (2009), Chapter 3;
also Montgomery, Stren, Cohen
and Reed (2004).
25. Schuurmann (2009).
26. Gupta, Arnold and
Lhungdim (2009), page 43.
27. Elson (1999); also Folbre
(1994); Perrons (2010); and
Razavi (2007), pages 4−5.
28. See Budlender (2008); also
Budlender (editor) (2010); Chant
(1996); UN−DESA/UNDAW
(2009); UNRISD (2010); and WHO
(2009).
29. Chant (2007a); also
McDowell, Ward, Fagan,
Perrons and Ray (2006).
30. Palmer (1992). FIGURE 1 Female school drop-out rates due to pregnancy and early
marriage for slum and non-slum residents in selected countries
(percentage) 31. Perrons (2010); also Perrons
and Plomien (2010). SOURCE: UN−Habitat (2010d), State of the Urban Youth 2010/11 – Levelling the
Playing Field: Inequality of Youth Opportunity, Earthscan, London, Figure 2.9,
page 23. represent a docile, but reliable, workforce that can be paid lower wages
than men but at higher rates of efficiency.(32)
Although the development of information and communications
technology has the potential, as a new economic sector, to provide
a “gender-neutral”, or at least more level, playing field, there is little
evidence to date that women are making as much headway as men,
being generally confined to low level routine tasks such as data entry.(33)
While not denying that some women have been able to secure niches in
comparatively well-remunerated sub-sectors, such as call centre work,(34)
as cautioned by UNRISD: 32. Elson and Pearson (1981);
also UN Women (2011), page
35. 33. See Lugo and Sampson
(2008); also Mitter and
Rowbotham (editors) (1997).
34. See Patel (2010). “The boom of information technology services and of the off-shoring
of office work by multinational companies [have] opened up career
opportunities in formal skill-intensive employment for educated,
English-speaking women from the urban middle classes. While
women make up a large share of the workforce in this emerging
sector, segmentation and discrimination along the lines of gender,
caste and class are widespread, and women tend to be concentrated
in low-end occupations.”(35)
It is also important to countenance that the urban-related “feminization
of labour” (in respect of the rising engagement of women in remunerated 14 35. UNRISD (2010), page 119. A GOLDEN ‘URBAN AGE’ FOR WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH? 36. See Horn (2010). 37. Chant and McIlwaine (2009);
also Chant and Pedwell (2008);
Chen (2010); Chen, Carr and
Vanek (2004); Lessinger (1990);
Meagher (2010); and see also
Figure 2 in this paper. 38. Chant (2007b). 39. See, for example, Standing
(1999). 40. McDowell, War, Fagan,
Perrons and Ray (2006); also
Razavi (2007), page 1. 41. See CPRC (2010); also
González de la Rocha (1994);
and Moser (1992). work) has been accompanied by an “informalization of labour” across
the global South, particularly since the debt crisis of the 1980s and the
neoliberal economic reforms that have followed in its wake. Moreover,
analysis of the recent global financial crisis suggests that this is impacting
heavily on the poorest workers in the informal economy, who in the
majority are female.(36)
Gaps between women and men in the informal economy owe to several
factors including women’s restricted use of space, their lower levels of skills
and work experience, limited access to start-up capital and their often
secondary (and under- and/or unpaid) roles in “family businesses”.(37) As
a result of constraints on women’s spatial mobility arising from moral and
social norms, and due to the demands placed on women by reproductive
ties, women’s informal economic activities are commonly based at home
(Figure 2).
Domestic-based income-generating options are especially limited in
nature and earning potential for female slum dwellers, whose frequently
peripheral locations, compounded by inaccessible or unaffordable
transport, hamper access to wider and more remunerative markets and
whose reproductive time burdens, exacerbated by inadequate services
and infrastructure, afford them little flexibility.(38) A further consideration
is that competition among women in similar situations, who may only
have scope to engage in a narrow range of under-capitalized activities, can
lead to a “discouraged labour effect” and workforce drop-out.(39)
Yet discouraged or not, the pressures on poor households to generate
income means that women increasingly spend more time in remunerated
endeavours, while also continuing to undertake the bulk of unpaid
domestic labour and care work. These multiple activities exert additional
demands in terms of “patching together” activities that are often separated
in urban space, such as shopping, child care and employment.(40)
Another factor with inter-generational implications is that daughters
often have to assume a greater share of reproductive labour, which may
cause absenteeism from school or early drop-out, thereby inhibiting their
own accumulation of human capital.(41) IV. GENDER DISPARITIES IN HUMAN CAPITAL 42. Klasen (2002); also World
Bank (2006).
43. Evans (2011). 44. Grown (2005); also Tembon
and Fort (editors) (2008); and
UNMP/TFEGE (2005).
45. UN−DESA (2010), page 43.
46. Lloyd (2009); also Morrison,
Raju and Singa (2010); and UN
(2010). Gender disparities in human capital pertain to education, vocational training
and skills, and are not only critical in terms of women’s participation in
labour markets and economic growth overall(42) but are also an integral
aspect of “personhood”, affecting women’s general capacities, their selfesteem and their ability to exert agency.(43) Educated women, on average,
delay marriage and childbirth, are less vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, enjoy more
power in their homes and in public arenas and have fewer children, who also
tend to be healthier and better educated.(44) Despite closing gender gaps in
education, women still constitute approximately two-thirds of 774 million
adult illiterates worldwide.(45) Among contemporary generations of girls,
completion of education (especially at secondary and tertiary levels) is often
disproportionately low.(46)
Young women may be withdrawn from school (if they are actually
enrolled in the first place) because their parents or guardians may not
perceive girls’ education to be important or because their labour is needed
from an early age to help out with unpaid chores or household finances, 15 E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N Vol 25 No 1 April 2013 FIGURE 2 Segmentation by sex within the informal economy
SOURCE: Chen, Martha A (2010), “Informality, poverty and gender: evidence
from the global South”, in Sylvia Chant (editor), The International Handbook of
Gender and Poverty: Concepts, Research, Policy, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham,
Figure 71.1, page 468. even if ther...
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