The 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters was held in November 2019 in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung and featured an eclectic range of speakers. It was a special honor to have Professor Yi-ling Chen, an associate professor in the School of Politics at the University of Wyoming, share her expertise in a presentation on housing movements and women in Taiwan.

Chen began by highlighting some of the ongoing issues in the Taiwanese housing market, including a high level of homeownership accompanied by a high vacancy rate, as well as soaring house prices. In addition, Taiwan has a very small percentage of social housing despite President Tsai Ing-wen’s pledge to make an increase.

Chen went on to give details about two local movements which were inspired by housing issues. First, the Shell-less Snail Movement in 1989 was a broad middle-class movement for increased homeownership. Second, she introduced the Social (Rental) Housing Movement and the work of the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium, both of which have been in progress since 2010. Her presentation explained the contexts of these two movements, their impact on housing policy, and how women have been affected by these policy changes.

Overall, she found that women’s movements in Taiwan have not been focused on housing issues. One reason is that urban planning and architecture are still male-dominated professions. Therefore, there is a limited female perspective in housing design. Another key issue is that homeownership has been the guiding ideology of housing policy and in the housing market, meaning housing affordability is an increasing concern for many people, including women.

Finally, due to the lack of information on the issue, the problems with women’s housing have remained invisible and thus unsolved. She concluded by suggesting that bringing a female perspective into urban planning and architecture as well as changing the homeownership ideology of society could contribute to a more women-friendly housing policy and market.