WUNRN
World Urbanization Prospects Report 2014 – 32 Pages – UN DESA - http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Highlights/WUP2014-Highlights.pdf
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http://pubs.iied.org/10614IIED.html
Direct Link to Full 48-Page Document: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10614IIED.pdf
Urbanization, Gender & Urban Poverty:
Paid Work & Unpaid Care Work in the City
Most of
the world’s population now live in urban centres, where virtually all
population growth in the next century will also be absorbed. Urbanization
offers unprecedented opportunities for increasing living standards, life
expectancy and literacy levels, environmental sustainability and more efficient
use of increasingly scarce natural resources. For women, urbanization is
associated with greater access to employment opportunities, lower fertility
levels and increased independence. Yet urbanization does not necessarily result
in a more equitable distribution of wealth and wellbeing. In many low and
middle income nations, urban poverty is growing compared to rural poverty.
Urban residents are more dependent on cash incomes to meet their essential
needs than rural residents, and income poverty is compounded by inadequate and
expensive accommodation, limited access to basic infrastructure and services, exposure
to environmental hazards and high rates of crime and violence. This gives urban
poverty a distinctive gendered dimension as it puts a disproportionate burden
on those members of communities and households who are responsible for unpaid
care work. Cash-based urban economies mean that poor women are compelled, often
from a very young age, to also engage in paid activities. In many instances
this involves work in the lowest-paid formal and informal sector activities
which, at times of economic crises, require increasingly long hours for the
same income. Cuts in the public provision of services, higher costs for food,
water and transport, efforts to balance paid work and unpaid care work take a
growing toll on women. A gendered perspective of urban poverty reveals the
significance of non-income dimensions such as time poverty; and highlights
fundamental issues of equality and social justice by showing women’s unequal
position in the urban labor market, their limited ability to secure assets
independently from male relatives and their greater exposure to violence.