关键词: 时间地理学, 时空间行为, 郊区女性, 一周, 日间差异, 北京市

Abstract:

The rapid growth of urban population in China, together with the dramatic institutional transition, has led to the fast spreading of urban space and a growing tendency of residential suburbanization. Remarkable environmental changes have taken place in urban China, with large suburban residential areas emerging in big Chinese cities. As often observed in urban China, the dwelling environment of suburban areas is distinct from downtowns with less job opportunities and insufficient facilities, resulting in longer distance in daily trips and disadvantages in residents′ accessibility. For the female population particularly, despite more engagement in labor market and possibility of economic independency thanks to the improvement of women′s status in the past decades, most of them keep taking responsibility for domestic duty resulting from the traditional family value, and thus suffer more challenges in daily life in the context of dramatic urban sprawl compared with the male counterpart. Few studies have addressed the gendered activity pattern in suburban China, urging for attempts to reveal the gender inequity and the ignorance of women′s wellbeing in the development of suburban areas.This study based on a GPS-based activity-travel survey in Beijing in 2012, applies a time-geographic research framework and a feminist perspective to explore the activity pattern and day-to-day variability in activity-travel behavior of suburban women in both spatial and temporal dimensions as an attempt to reveal the gendered activity space in suburban China. Emphasis is put on daily rhythms and time allocation of activities based on the activity-travel diaries, and GIS-based activity space based on the standard confidence ellipse analysis of GPS data. On the one hand, in the aspect of time, it is observed that the daily life of the suburban women tends to be regular, diversified and fragmental in terms of time use. On weekdays specifically, working activities constitute a dominant part in time allocation, and the participation of shopping, housework, travel and leisure activities is relatively fixed with insignificant variation from Monday to Thursday and a slight augmentation in housework activities on Friday; while on weekends, housework and leisure activities constitute a greater part in time use, and less time is allocated to trips on Sunday compared with Saturday. On the other hand, in the aspect of space, it is found that the majority of the suburban female residents are employed in the inner suburban areas, and most of the non-work activities take place in suburb with an exception of shopping activities on weekends. It could be concluded that the suburban areas in Beijing, while being gradually shifting from dwelling space to living space for suburban female residents, still need further promotion in job opportunities and shopping facilities. The results from the study shed light on the weekly space-time behavior pattern of suburban female residents, and provide beneficial implications for spatial planning and infrastructure construction in the suburban areas addressing the gender equity and women′s quality of life.

Key words: time geography, spatio-temporal activity pattern, suburban female residents, one week, day-to-day variability, Beijing