Gender Equality in Housing Delivery - A Panacea to Adequate Housing Supply in Nigeria

Abstract

Women represent about fifty percent of the world’s population yet own less than one percent of the world’s property.
Available literature reveals that housing has hitherto been seen as a male resource with women having access only to its use
and content. A concept rooted in patriarchy and strengthened by societal norms. By this, women are usually not consulted during
the various housing development processes. They are expected to adapt, even when they are major users and consumers of
housing facilities and infrastructure. While the home-bound women devote 95.0% of their working hours to cleaning and
maintaining their environment, the working class and the female heads of households experience functional problems accessing
housing facilities and services in order to fulfill their socially and domestically accepted roles. In this regard, the major thrust of
this research work is to review substantive and empirical evidences available in past literatures to set up a basis of suggesting
the conceptualization of women and housing as a distinct policy domain. Areas of focus in this paper therefore include housing
design and planning, building materials production and supply, housing facilities and management. The paper recommends that
since women have both ‘strategic’ and ‘political’ housing needs, the scope or rationale of women housing need should be treated
separately from those of men’s or housing for all the poor.