Women’s Homelessness in Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

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2. Introduction

   • Joanne Bretherton, Paula Mayock

   Pages 1-12

3. Historical Legacies, Cultural Images and Welfare States

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. Women’s Homelessness: A Historical Perspective

      • Eoin O’Sullivan

      Pages 15-40

   3. Cultural Images and Definitions of Homeless Women: Implications for Policy and Practice at the European Level

      • Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand, Deborah Quilgars

      Pages 41-73

   4. Women’s Homelessness and Welfare States

      • Joanne Bretherton, Lars Benjaminsen, Nicholas Pleace

      Pages 75-102

4. Issues, Challenges and Solutions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 103-103

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   2. Exclusion by Definition: The Under-representation of Women in European Homelessness Statistics

      • Nicholas Pleace

      Pages 105-126

   3. Women’s Homelessness and Domestic Violence: (In)visible Interactions

      • Paula Mayock, Joanne Bretherton, Isabel Baptista

      Pages 127-154

   4. The Health of Homeless Women

      • Judith Wolf, Isobel Anderson, Linda van den Dries, Maša Filipovič Hrast

      Pages 155-178

   5. Mothers Who Experience Homelessness

      • Linda van den Dries, Paula Mayock, Susanne Gerull, Tessa van Loenen, Bente van Hulst, Judith Wolf

      Pages 179-208

   6. Long-term and Recurrent Homelessness Among Women

      • Nicholas Pleace, Joanne Bretherton, Paula Mayock

      Pages 209-233

   7. Migrant Women and Homelessness

      • Magdalena Mostowska, Sarah Sheridan

      Pages 235-263

   8. Conclusions

      • Paula Mayock, Joanne Bretherton

      Pages 265-285

5. Back Matter

   Pages 287-295

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This book marks a critical contribution in assessing and extending the evidence base on the causes and consequences of women’s homelessness. Drawing together work from Europe’s leading homelessness scholars, it presents a multidisciplinary and comparative analysis of this acute social problem, including its relationship with domestic violence, lone parenthood, motherhood, health and well-being and women’s experience of sustained and recurrent homelessness. Working from diverse perspectives, the authors look at the responses to women’s homelessness in differing cultures and regions, and within various forms of welfare states. They focus in particular on relating the gender dimensions of welfare and social policy to women’s experiences when they become homeless. This innovative and timely edited volume will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, social policy, anthropology, and gender and women’s studies, along with international policy-makers.

• Housing
• Gender
• Inequality
• Comparative research
• Social policy
• Domestic violence
• Lone parenthood
• Motherhood
• Health and well-being
• development aid

“The volume successfully highlights the way in which gender expectations intersect with power structures to inform women’s vulnerability to and experience of homelessness, producing a convincing and coherent argument as to the gendered nature of homelessness and the urgent need for academics and policy makers to understand it as such. As such, it would be of great value to scholars with an interest in housing, homelessness, or gender.” (Kesia Reeve, European Journal of Homelessness, Vol. 11 (2), September, 2017)

“This is an important collection of nuanced analyses by top scholars of how gender shapes women’s experiences of homelessness and societal responses to it in ways that too often render women invisible to researchers, policy makers, and service providers.” (Marybeth Shinn, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College, USA)

“An assessment of the current state of knowledge about women’s homelessness in Europe is long overdue. This volume, authored by a fine selection of leading European homelessness researchers, provides an excellent overview of what we know about different aspects of women’s homelessness. This impressive collection of contributions also shows the pressing need for further research on gender dimensions of homelessness and related policy responses.” (Volker Busch-Geertsema, GISS Institute, Germany, and Co-Ordinator of the European Observatory on Homelessness, Belgium)

• School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

  Paula Mayock

• Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, York, United Kingdom

  Joanne Bretherton

Paula Mayock is Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.


Joanne Bretherton is Research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, UK.

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