Speaker
Description
The importance of studying daily mobility from a gender perspective has been highlighted for many years. Gendered differences can be explained by a gendered division of labour, making the mobility of domestic work a task attributed to feminine values. In peri-urban areas, the differences in practices and experiences of mobility between women and men can be exacerbated. The literature also highlights the influence of generation and age on gender gaps. Research crossing gender and age does not seem to be very abundant. However, getting older and retirement from the professional world may provide an opportunity to rethink the division of labor within couples in older age, and could lead to a reconfiguration of social roles.
This communication proposes to combine age and gender as social relationships between people in order to analyze mobility. We focuse more specifically on mobility for shopping reasons in peri-urban areas. For this research, interviews were conducted in the peri-urban areas of two French intermediate cities. The words of 46 women and 24 men aged between 66 and 91, are analyzed. The sample is diverse in terms of former occupation and urban context of residence: from suburbs to polarized rural areas. Participants were mainly asked about the location of the stores they frequented and the meaning given to the shopping activity. Respondents were also asked about changes in their shopping behavior as they got older.
The results highlight that women's experiences of mobility are more restricted as they get older, due to economic and health conditions inequalities. Women are also more likely to adopt ethical consumption patterns as they age. Within older couples, advancing age leads to a new organization associated with shopping. For some couples, this division of responsibilities in old age is more egalitarian, while for others it reinforces gender norms that assign women to the domestic sphere.
Biography
I am a PhD student (at the end of my thesis) in urban planning under the supervision of Emre Korsu at the Ville Mobilité Transport laboratory. I'm working on mobility and purchasing issues for older people living in low density areas. I'm studying the changes in mobility practices as people get older, in the light of the transformation of the commercial offer and mobility services. I'm also interested in mobility and shopping activity as a particular experience. I would like to highlight the inequalities (territorial, economic, social, gendered, etc.) between elderly people who are ageing at home in order to maintain their autonomy in terms of purchasing supplies.
