European Integral Urban Policies from a Gender Perspective. Gender-Sensitive Measures, Transversality and Gender Approaches

María Jesús Rodríguez-García,Francesca Donati

doi:10.3390/su13179543

Abstract

Integrated policy strategies represent an increasingly popular approach in urban development and gender policies. This article analyses the integration between integral urban policies and gender mainstreaming in the European Union. A specific analytical proposal is elaborated and applied to urban policies promoted by the EU in Spain between 1994 and 2013. The Comparative Urban Policy Portfolio Analysis is used to study the inclusion of gender-sensitive policy measures in local project portfolios, their transversality across policy sectors, and the relevance of two main approaches to analyse them. The results show that integral urban development programmes have incorporated gender-sensitive policy measures. Results also show a low level of transversality focused mainly on social integration, although they combine objectives focused on a women-centred approach to classical areas of gender inequality affecting women, i.e., employment, education, health, and a gender approach focused on new welfare challenges linked to care and defamilisation. These results show the relevance of analysing gender approaches included in integral urban policies to comprehend the character of their gender mainstreaming and their potential effects on more gender-equal cities.

Highlights

Since the 1990s, the European Union has been promoting integrated intervention initiatives in disadvantaged urban areas
The results show that the presence of gender-oriented measures in integrated urban development projects in the period of analysis was not high
The analysis focuses on the study of initiatives that tend to produce defamilisation, understood as the degree to which the state assumes welfare responsibilities traditionally developed in the households

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1990s, the European Union has been promoting integrated intervention initiatives in disadvantaged urban areas These aim to improve the conditions and quality of life of the population living in these areas using an integral approach. This entails engaging different areas of public policy that explain the processes of socio-spatial exclusion and vulnerability in the urban sphere (housing, employment, education, etc.), since exclusion is a multidimensional phenomenon [1,2]. From a policy frame focused on neighbourhood revitalisation to a broader one focused on promoting sustainable communities, both at the scale of individual neighbourhoods and larger-scale urban areas [4,5]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion