An intersectional feminist approach to affordable housing and social reproduction

Affordable housing policy is always gender policy, and access to affordable housing depends on other diversity-specific characteristics such as the income situation, household size, migration biography, health status, age, and other structural categories of social differentiation. These intersectional characteristics and categories influence both urban development and the social composition of neighborhoods, and thus the quality of life in cities and specific neighborhoods (Soederberg 2021). Secure and affordable housing has a direct impact on social reproduction and can play an essential role against social insecurity or evictions. In this respect, the provision of affordable housing in cities and towns covers primary needs of people: to feel safe, to have a space to retreat and time for recreation and leisure, to replenish and to get enough sleep and keep physically intact, clean, and healthy. In short: to practice all forms of social reproduction (SR). For all this, sufficient and affordable housing is a basic requirement. In feminist political economy, social reproduction is understood as all that people need for their everyday livelihood. Regarding the housing market, processes of marketization and thus privatization and financialization can be observed in the last ten years in Austria, which primarily affect the segment of so-called "provident apartments". The expansion of this form of investment for private provision is reserved for a high-income segment of the population, which regards it as an alternative strategy to other forms of investment. In the following paper, the different social categories will be put in relation to the different forms of access to affordable housing in Vienna, considering also high inflation rates in 2022/23 as well as housing costs and energy price increases. Subsequently, with reference to the international feminist political economy, necessary changes in the current housing situation of different population groups and their financial situation will be analyzed regarding the effects they have on social reproduction.