Co-Housing to Ease and Share Household Chores? Spatial Visibility and Collective Deliberation as Levers for Gender Equality

Abstract

Dwelling is very much related to time. A home shields the dweller from outsiders yet, provides an opportunity to engage with the outside world. However, the time required for household chores tends to hinder this engagement, especially for women. Interestingly, co-housing projects tend to rationalise housing and mutualise time-consuming tasks, freeing up time to and thus emancipating and empowering inhabitants. This argument was put to the test in a field study in Brussels. Through a gendered perspective, the research questions and tries to identify which levers ease domestic drudgery in co-housing projects. Spatial analyses coupled with qualitative observations and interviews were carried out in two co-housing projects. The issue of freeing up time through co-housing seems particularly relevant to various categories of people. First, it addresses gender inequalities regarding an egalitarian sharing of household chores. Second, individual (divorced, elderly, or single) households could also benefit from these time savings. Understanding co-housing within this emancipating perspective could be a lever to influence future policy making and incentives.

Keywords

• household chores
• co-housing
• time consumption
• empowerment
• gender