Unequal ways of accessing the city: daily mobility and gender in a segregated neighborhood of Buenos Aires

Abstract

This article analyzes how gender inequalities are expressed and reproduced in daily mobility within a segregated neighborhood in the City of Buenos Aires. Based on quantitative data from two surveys conducted in the Villa Lugano neighborhood, the article highlights how gender operates as a key divide shaping daily mobility across three dimensions: the activities or purposes that structure these practices, the everyday geographic repertoires they produce, and the modes of transport used to carry them out. The findings show that both labor-related mobility and care-related mobility are structuring factors of gender differences in the use and appropriation of the city. The social organization of care not only structures the use of time but also the use of urban space, directly influencing unequal forms of urban appropriation. While men show higher levels of labor market participation and consequently develop more spatially extensive mobilities, women’s daily itineraries are more strongly shaped by care-related mobility, which tends to be anchored in proximity. The article also reflects on the data collection instruments used, contributing to methodological debates on studying care mobilities.