The capabilities approach to the quality of urban life of women: Measuring the intra-urban disparities in the city of Amasya

Date

2025-4

Author

Sağıroğlu, Müzeyyen

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Everyone has the right to live their life with dignity in a place where they have the freedom to realize the functionings they value. Disadvantaged women experience their environments differently from men and arguably do not live in environments that enhance their agency, freedom, and opportunities to live valuable lives. There is a need to understand the quality of urban life of women living in urban neighborhoods in terms of freedom to achieve the valued functionings. Accordingly, this thesis theoretically aims to question the aggregate satisfaction measurement based on the utilitarian perspective, to further develop the concept of quality of urban life by reconceptualizing it within the framework of the relationship between women and urban space and the capabilities and functionings approach, and to introduce the concept of 'Capabilities-Based Quality of Urban Life'. In the empirical research part of the thesis, it is aimed to understand whether and in what aspects the capabilities-based quality of urban life differs for women living in two urban neighborhood clusters in the central district of Amasya classified by Women's Human Development Index levels. Additionally, it aims to evaluate the impact of internal/external conversion factors and the choice factor on limiting women‘s capabilities to achieve valued functionings in urban space. To achieve these aims, a quantitative research design was implemented. Within this scope, after identifying the neighborhoods exhibiting urban center characteristics using ArcGIS Pro, SPSS Cluster Analysis was employed to determine urban neighborhood clusters differing in terms of Women's HDI. Subsequently, SmartPLS Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the survey data obtained from 470 women. Unlike other studies on the quality of urban life, this study explores whether the urban environment in which women live provides them with the freedom to achieve valued functionings related to accessibility, safety, and participation. Conducting this study will pave the way for the quality of urban life research that takes into account women‘s capabilities/freedoms and functionings in the evaluation of their quality of urban life. Additionally, the results obtained will be important for both the critical evaluation of problems encountered in the urban physical structure and the development of future urban policies to expand women‘s agency freedom in cities.

Subject Keywords

Quality of urban life, Capabilities and functionings, Women and urban space, Human development, PLS-SEM

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114564

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis