Rural Peripheralization — Urban Polarization? The Significance of Gendered Mobility in Central Germany

Abstract

Societal changes, uneven spatial development and gender issues are intertwined in several ways (Massey 1994: 1ff.). Recent studies show that especially remote and economically weak regions in Europe have been affected by age- and gender-selective out-migration, leading to unbalanced sex-ratio structures with a shortage of young women (Wiest and Leibert 2013: 457–8). Changes in gendered migration patterns are considered to be an outcome of structural changes such as rising female labour force participation, the transition from industrial to post-industrial economies, the growth of the information society, and basically new frameworks for social relations in a globalizing world (ESPON and Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde 2013). In particular, highly qualified women supposedly favour residential locations in inner-city areas due to favourable conditions in the labour market and the possibilities for reconciling job and family life. Against this backdrop, the rising attractiveness of urban core areas as a residential location for families has been considered as a consequence of changing gender relations. The underlying assumption is that living in certain spatial environments is related to certain notions of being a woman or a man (Berg 2004: 137), or, more specifically, to a certain notion of arranging family life. Taking this into account, the present chapter refers to the assumption that the differences between and within places, including the production of core-periphery relations, ‘are all part and parcel of the social constitution of gendered social relations and the structure and meaning of place’ (McDowell and Sharp 1997: 2–3).