Caregiving and Paid Employment in Suburbia
The Cases of Hamburg‐Oberbillwerder and Munich‐Freiham
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22018195 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Henriette Bertram (0000-0002-0690-8445, Technische Universität Braunschweig), Sarah Mente (0009-0005-6606-0297, Technische Universität Braunschweig), Johanna Niesen (0009-0000-8571-2397, Technische Universität Braunschweig) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Planning (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-7635 • E-ISSN: 2183-7635 |
| Publisher | Cogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT) |
| DOI | 10.17645/up.10036 |
| OpenAlex | W4414276303 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 46 |
Urban planning has long been criticised for privileging the spatial needs and demands of paid employment, thus discriminating against caregivers. This critique applied especially to monofunctional suburban districts that lacked childcare and employment opportunities, complicating the everyday geographies of caregivers and care‐receivers. The spatial structure and layout of suburban settlements had their origin in stereotypical gendered role expectations in which a usually male breadwinner would commute into the city and a usually female caregiver would look after the house, garden, and children. Nowadays, combining care and paid employment has become a matter of course and a necessity for many people of all genders. Our contribution asks how scholarly critique and societal changes affect planning practice and planning rationales. We analyse two newly planned suburban districts in Germany in relation to care and its compatibility with paid employment. We aim to establish whether planners and other local decision‐makers reflect on the decade‐long critique from a care perspective and see the provision of good conditions for employed caregivers within the scope of their work. Our research draws on a qualitative content analysis of planning and media documents and expert interviews. Our findings suggest that care and supporting compatibility with paid work are important yet are largely implicit guiding principles, which might result in the impact of planning on compatibility and a fairer distribution of care tasks remaining superficial. The study reveals how care and the compatibility of paid work and caregiving are implicitly present, but rarely acknowledged, in planning processes, underscoring the structural role of urban development in shaping conditions for employed caregivers
Human settlement · Paid work · Qualitative research · Spatial planning · Urban planning · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Rural development and sustainability · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Qualitative Content Analysis in Practice
Cities and Gender
Social Reproduction Theory
A Gender Agenda
Care economies—feminist contributions and debates in economic theory
Gender and Economics. Feministische Kritik der politischen Ökonomie
Stadtplanung im Geschlechterkampf
The Urban Infrastructure of Care
Care Revolution
Frauen und Gentrification
Same-Sex Couples’ Division of Labor from a Cross-National Perspective
Just care! Rethinking the uneven geographies of care
Regulating for Gender Equality
Space, place and gender relations
After Suburbia
Housing
The suburban ethics of care
Rethinking care as alternate infrastructure
Changing Suburbs, Changing Women
On Suburban Pink Collar Ghettos
After The Family Wage
Landscapes of care
Geographies of Care and Responsibility
Cities of care
Why 'cultures of care
Masculine Cities and Feminine Suburbs
Feminist Economics
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |