Women and Housing: An International Analysis

by Patricia Kennett (Editor), Kam Wah Chan (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415548953
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/01/2010
Series:	Housing and Society Series
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Patricia Kennett is a Reader in Comparative Policy Studies and Head of the Centre for Urban Studies in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK. She has undertaken substantial research and published widely on issues relating to housing and home ownership, homelessness and social exclusion, citizenship and the welfare state in comparative perspective.

Chan Kam Wah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He mainly teaches social policy and housing policy. His major research interests are gender studies, housing studies, and social welfare and social policy analysis. Recent publications include: ‘Deconstructing the Asian Welfare Model: social equality matters’ in Journal of Asian Public Policy 1(3) 2008, The Crisis of Welfare in East Asia (Lexington, 2007, co-ed), Gender and Social Work – Theory and Practice (Chinese University Press, 2006, in Chinese, co-ed).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Gender and Housing in an International Context 2. Women’s Housing Rights: What is the Matter with the International Norm? 3. Women and Housing: The Australian Experience 4. Women and Housing Affordability in the United States 5. Social Change and Housing Systems: The Case of Women in Spain 6. Women’s Housing in Sweden 7.Women, Housing and Citizenship in Great Britain 8. Moving Beyond the Standard Family Model: The Emerging Housing Situation of Women in Japan 9. Neoliberalization and the Invisibility of Women’s Housing Problems in Taiwan 10. A Gender Study of the Housing Rights of Women in Urban China – a Case Study of a Single Parent Female Domestic Workers’ Group 11. Women and Housing in Hong Kong 12. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"Through its emperical detail, the book is an invaluable addition to the specific field of gender and housing and through its sensitives and analytically clear theoretical framework of feminist understandings of inequality is also a welcome and much-needed addition to the more general work on comparative housing debates." - Journal of Social Policy

"Through its emperical detail, the book is an invaluable addition to the specific field of gender and housing and through its sensitives and analytically clear theoretical framework of feminist understandings of inequality is also a welcome and much-needed addition to the more general work on comparative housing debates." - Journal of Social Policy

"The real strength of the publication is the revealing of international conjunctions between androcentric labour market structures (at present in many countries enforced by the economic crisis), a privatization- and individualization-oriented housing market, and women’s housing opportunities across tenures. This might make it a new piece of key literature on the topic, addressing advanced students, researchers and housing policy makers, and supporting the prioritization of this topic in current housing debates" - Christiane Droste, UrbanPlus, Berlin, Germany, International Journal of Housing Policy

From the Publisher