Greenspace matters: exploring links between greenspace, gender and well-being with conservation volunteers

Abstract

Our study aimed to increase understanding of the effect of gender on mediating engagement with greenspace, currently poorly understood. We engaged with a group of conservation volunteers in a Scottish city to explore how men and women benefit from and interact with greenspace in a deprived area. We found that interactions with the greenspace have multiple health and well-being benefits and that differences in engagement (and therefore potentially in any well-being benefits accrued) can be identified between men and women in terms of: motivations for getting involved with the group (e.g., men got involved for something to do whilst women sought to pursue conservation experience), connections volunteers made being in the group (e.g., men were more likely to value the social connections they made in the group than women) and finally, and potentially most importantly, the greenspace being valued for being a ‘neutral space’ where volunteers (especially men) felt more at ease and equal than in other places. This research enhances understanding of the ways in which benefits from engagement with greenspace are mediated through social factors such as gender and volunteering. Such research is important to planners and policy-makers in understanding how greenspace use can be encouraged for different genders.

Keywords:

• Greenspace
• health and well-being
• gender
• deprivation
• conservation volunteers
• qualitative research

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the Project and the Group involved in this work for taking part in the research. Thanks also to the reviewers of this paper who have hugely helped improve its content.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.