South African cities, housing precarity and women’s inclusion during COVID-19

abstract

South African history widely documents poor women’s housing exclusion in urban areas during the apartheid era. While the post-apartheid housing programme’s inclusionary objectives resulted in some women’s access to housing, its limited scale and some characteristics of the housing that was delivered meant that many poor women were already experiencing urban exclusion and housing precarity when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Drawing on a growing body of COVID-19-related research as well as government responses, this article uses a gender analysis to unpack the notion of inclusive cities in the context of housing during the pandemic. It argues that despite the evolution of housing policy to include sustainability notions, in particular Sustainable Development Goal 11, which aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive and sustainable, challenges to poor women’s urban inclusion not only remain, but have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Low-income women’s exposure to insecurities related to health, safety, affordability and loss of housing have shown cities to be neither inclusive nor sustainable for poor women, while gender-blind interventions have failed to take cognizance of the gendered impact of the pandemic on their housing experience. The article calls for post-pandemic recovery responses that take into account the constraints that hinder women’s urban housing inclusion in the first instance.

keywords:

• housing
• housing policy
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• low-income women
• urban inclusion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline Adebayo

PAULINE ADEBAYO is an Associate Professor in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is a land economist who holds a PhD in Town and Regional Planning and an MA in Housing Administration. Her research interests are in the areas of urban land markets, housing policy, housing finance and vulnerable groups in cities. Her recent publications are on gender and housing policy, incremental housing, housing and health, urban inclusivity and the asset effect of homeownership by the poor in South Africa. She was a member of the expert groups which wrote the chapters on gender equality and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable groups in the first edition of the South Africa Covid-19 Report, commissioned by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Government Technical Advisory Centre and National Research Foundation in 2021, and is a member of the expert groups currently conducting research towards the gender equality, vulnerable groups and human settlements chapters for the second edition of the Report.

Catherine Ndinda

CATHERINE NDINDA is an urban sociologist whose research focuses on gender and human settlements in South Africa. She holds an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning (Development) and a PhD in Social Science (Gender & Housing), and has been a principal investigator in numerous research projects, including the national baseline assessment of informal settlements targeted for upgrading (2016) study. The findings were published in a main report and summary report by the National Department of Human Settlements (2020). Her most recent research focuses on women’s access to the city in post-apartheid South Africa. She has authored journal articles, book chapters, and policy briefs focusing on various dimensions of gender in South Africa. While embedding her research in feminist politics and theory, she employs mixed methods to unravel housing poverty and the extent to which it affects women in South Africa. Her research interests remain anchored in development studies, especially in gender and human settlements, migration, and non-communicable diseases. Email: [email protected]

Tidings Ndhlovu

TIDINGS P. NDHLOVU obtained his PhD from the University of East Anglia in the UK, and is a Senior Lecturer in Economics in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, having previously taught at the University of Manchester, UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester), University of East Anglia and University of Essex. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Business Leadership (GSBL), University of South Africa, Nanjing University, China, and the University of Caen, France. Tidings is also external examiner (postgraduate programmes) at the University of Fort Hare, SA, and supervises PhD candidates at the Uganda Management Institute, Durban University of Technology and GSBL in South Africa.

Tidings was involved in founding the International Academy of African Business and Development (IAABD) 16 years ago, including the organisation’s journal, The Journal of African Business. He has been Executive Secretary of IAABD for the last 3 years. He has also been Associate Editor of the Journal of Green Economy and Development (JGED) since its inception in 2014, and chair of the annual JGED Conferences.

Tiding’s research focuses on commodity agreements, such as the EU/African, Caribbean and Pacific Sugar Protocol, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and subsidiary questions, the impact of EU aid programmes on developing countries, and theoretical Marxian and Keynesian/neo-Ricardian issues. In addition, he has worked on issues of development, including globalisation, global (financial) crises, structural adjustment policies, foreign direct investment, and Intensive Alternatives to Custody (UK), entrepreneurship, food ‘crisis’, sustainable development and service delivery, corporate social responsibility and corporate social investment, decent work and livelihoods strategies, and development of crafts forex port, particularly with reference to South Africa. Email: [email protected]