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Perception of Quality of Life through a gendered lens: A case from the city of Birmingham

Khaef, Samaneh (2013) Perception of Quality of Life through a gendered lens: A case from the city of Birmingham.

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Abstract:Quality of Life is an important concept, which has been subject of ongoing studies recently. Perception of QOL is considerably affected by gender, while in most of studies gender determinant of QOL is ignored which led to gendered blindness cities. From the other side, since QOL is related to people’s perception of their life environment, objective condition of environment affect it, which is more considerable in deprived areas, where women due to so called feminization of poverty suffer more from poor objective condition of life. Regard to this fact, this study has investigated in QOL through a gendered lens in different deprived and non-deprived contexts either to recognize gendered QOL domains or to see how gendered perception varies in different contexts. To define different contexts, index of multiple deprivation which shows pattern of deprivation throughout Birmingham has been used and then by application of open questionnaire and individual interview, people’s perception toward their neighbourhood has been captured. Results show that due to feminized deprivation in education, skill and qualification and existing gendered differences in deprived neighbourhoods, while women and men mentioned to similar QOL domains as access to facilities, street condition, safety, green space and social interaction, their perception of details in some aspects as safety issue, access to facilities and street condition varied. Also aspects of children poverty, unemployment, historical value and housing condition have been reflected just by women or men. However considering location of one of the deprived neighbourhood, which is adjacent to non-deprived wards, more similarity in gendered perception has been identified. By changing context and moving to non-deprived neighbourhood, due to more gendered inclusive ambiance, women and men expressed considerable similarity in their perception of QOL. In fact, according to extracted QOL domains, context has considerable effect on gendered perception. As a noticeable example, it can be mentioned to perception of green space, which due to unsafe ambiance in one deprived context, has been perceived negatively while in other contexts, it has been reflected as a positive aspect of QOL. Furthermore, considering personal characteristics of respondents, employment, education, ethnicity and religion by having different effects in studied contexts, play important role in gendered perception. To be added respondents have been asked to mention to areas where they have specific perception. Results show expressed gendered issues mostly are arisen from spatial context and specific areas, which led to gendered pattern of perception. Regard to applicability of QOL findings in planning process, extracted results have been compared with survey opinion of 2008 to see the extent that it covers gendered QOL. Based on result due to general outlook and quantitative methods adopted in the survey opinion of 2008, some aspects of gendered QOL and their perception of details have not addressed, while they matter to respondents. Key words: quality of life, gendered perception, feminization of poverty, index of multiple deprivation, the survey opinion of 2008
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:ITC: Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation
Programme:Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation MSc (75014)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/94027
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