Gender and Korean Urban Space: Working Women and Restructuring of Urban Space

초록

While this paper does not adopt a necessarily feminist perspective, the main topic of this paper is to examine urban problems associated with male-oriented urban development. Futurists say that the 21th century will be the age of women. This means that the productivity and efficiency of female workers will be a critical factor for regional growth. From this vantage point, an appropriate strategy for urban development should be changed from an authoritative, male-oriented to a democratic, gender-neutral approach. Urban space should be developed in such a way as to expand the scale and scope of female activities. In particular, there are several important reasons for undertaking female-friendly development: first, in order to improve regional competitiveness; second, in order to build safe cities; and third, in order to foster a gender-equal, democratic society.