Paper short abstract:

Our paper brings a sub-Saharan perspective to the dialogue on gendered work in public space in the global south. We discuss access and use legitimacies of public spaces and the conflicting debate that arises from ongoing neoliberal redevelopment projects in these public spaces.

Paper long abstract:

Women workers have been using public spaces in Ghanaian cities as workplaces for several decades. A recent redevelopment of public spaces in Ghana has resulted in the relocation, displacement, and eviction of informal workers majority of whom are women from these public spaces. This study seeks to explore how women in informal cities contribute to the overall growth and development of cities in Ghana to understand women’s productive and reproductive work. We explore the diverse paid and unpaid work these informal workers conduct and their motivations through a multitude of qualitative methods. Through the social reproduction theory, we explain the complexity of women’s productive and reproductive work towards the growth of cities and highlight the differential categories that affect diverse women working in public spaces in Ghanaian cities. The study findings revealed that informal work in Ghanaian cities is regarded as predominantly women’s work, rooted in customary belief systems and that the women raise women to perpetuate gendered work and different women use and access public spaces differently. We conclude that efforts to attain gender equality and decent work should encompass an understanding and incorporation of informal women’s work into urban planning policies.