Infrastructure and subjective well-being from a gender perspective

Abstract

Mainstreaming gender analysis into all aspects of policy making, including infrastructure and economic policy, is a key aspect to achieving gender equality. The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of several public infrastructures on well-being by gender, applying the Capability and Subjective Well-being approaches. An index of access to infrastructure is constructed and its effect on well-being is estimated using a new survey dataset from Spain. The results from the logistic regression model show that access to infrastructure positively affects subjective well-being, particularly of female respondents. All dimensions of infrastructure matter more for women’s wellbeing than men’s. Important differences in the impact on well-being by the types of infrastructures analyzed and the impact differs significantly by age are obtained. The findings suggest that designing public infrastructure policies can contribute to reducing gender well-being gap.