Men’s experiences of state sponsored housing in South Africa: emerging issues and key questions

Abstract

In South African cities, millions of men and women living informally are being rehoused through the state-directed provision of formal houses to poor beneficiaries. This intervention is reshaping their lives, and innovatively targets beneficiaries with dependents, where over half are women. Aiming to redress the historical context of gendered inequality in housing ownership and house the very poor, these policy and implementation changes necessarily impact on men in terms of their power, resources and employment but in complex ways including positive and negative. The home remains significant for many men’s desires for authority and identity. Using the lens of masculinity, this paper considers the ways in which men are experiencing this housing intervention, revealing a complex mix of outcomes in terms of their sense of identity, their relationships and their financial pressures and income generation. It draws on empirical work in South Africa to illuminate the importance of focusing on men in relation to housing and offers key questions for future research.