Gender, class and space in the field of parenthood: comparing middle‐class fractions in Amsterdam and London

Abstract

This paper argues that becoming a parent/carer can be seen as a new field of social relations and suggests how gender is the key mechanism in the reconfiguration of class relations in this field. By conceptualising parenthood as a field, that is a social world with specific stakes and rules, this study suggests that residential decisions and strategies developed by different middle-class households do not solely depend on their class habitus, but also on gendered positions and dispositions in respect to division of labour, child care and school choice. Drawing on interview data from London and Amsterdam, this study re-addresses the issue of middle-class time-space trajectories at a specific period in the life course. We contend that the middle classes are not just differentiated by various orientations of capital (economic versus cultural) but that interaction of class and gender is also key for understanding practices of the middle classes as they enter the field of parenthood. These practices are strongly influenced by labour market and welfare regimes (as the Netherlands/England comparison makes clear). In the new field of parenthood the work of realigning class habitus (through social reproduction) is highly gendered, but to different degrees that are made evident in the different neighbourhood settings. In terms of urban space this points to the significance of the particular neighbourhood structure and opportunities of the city as a whole as well as a more active idea of the role of space in the particular working out of class and gender in specific neighbourhood contexts. Urban space is a situating framework and an active process in trajectories of social reproduction.

The Situations of Urban Inquiry: Thinking Problematically about the City

“…But there is a good deal of evidence showing that people do have an intuitive sense of neighbourhood. This is evident in particular in investigations of the varying degrees to which people rely on their neighbourhood depending on their stage in the lifecycle and their gender (see Boterman and Bridge, ). As an arena for coordinating the challenges of residing, provisioning, child care, and paid and unpaid work, the neighbourhood is especially sensitive to disruption.…”

“…This is evident, for example, for middle‐class gentrifiers who become parents and carers. They find that their neighbourhoods have been problematic for them on account of being surrounded by more socially mixed schools (Boterman and Bridge, ). ‘School choice' is the recurring problem through which issues of class, status and residence emerge as public issues.…”

Ripping the Heart out of Ancoats: Collective Action to Defend Infrastructures of Social Reproduction against Gentrification

“…The significant early feminist focus on the disruption of everyday practices related to urban economic transition has not received the follow‐up attention it deserves. With notable exceptions (Boterman and Bridge ; Di Chiro ; Henry ; Kern , ; Smith ; Wright ), extensive critiques of the cultures of creative consumption (Peck ; Slater ) have paid less attention to social reproduction. Some 30 years onwards from the original attempt to examine gentrification and the disruption of practices and infrastructures of social reproduction side‐by‐side, we still lack a systematic, embodied analysis of gentrification as a lived process (Kaika and Ruggiero ) that offers sufficient empirical substantiation and conceptual elaboration on the ways in which economic restructuring practices uproot the “stuff of everyday life” and disrupt spatialised patterns of housing, healthcare, education, and childcare among other needs necessary to household reproduction (Boterman and Bridge ; Katz ; Smith ; Wright ).…”

When Social Infrastructure Deficits Create Displacement Pressures: Inner City Schools and the Suburbanization of Families in Melbourne

“…Warde, ; McDowell et al ., ), and studies highlighting the structuring effects of different spatial contexts on the organization of social reproduction (e.g. Boterman and Bridge, ; de Meester et al ., ), suggest these concerns about gendered displacement effects are not misplaced and warrant further investigation (Lees et al ., ).…”