Gender and the City: Urban Transformations and Women’s Economic Empowerment

This talk analyses how the social processes and the infrastructure that typically accompany economic growth affect women’s economic empowerment in Istanbul. Having experienced rapid urban growth, the megacity has invested heavily in large infrastructure projects such as mass rapid transit. However, women do not equally benefit from public transport as they face issues such as time poverty, risks of violence and a double burden of household and employment, restricting their urban mobility and influencing their participation in the labour force. The paper’s key findings are that the male dominated nature of the labour market and public transportation systems are not favourable for women’s access to economic opportunities and that the tension between rising conservatism and the aspirations to appear more Western can lead to unintended consequences for women’s economic empowerment in Istanbul.

 

 

Four Master of Public Affairs (MPA) students – Charlotte Hornung, Ishita Kaul, Arthur Macapagal, and Micaela Reategui – present the work of their capstone project, to be discussed by students from the Governing the Large Metropolis Master.

 

 

RSVP: maya.judd@sciencespo.fr