Originally published here.

For many people with disabilities, finding and sustaining work is a challenge. Indeed, it has been estimated that in the United States (US), only one in three (34.9%) individuals with disabilities are employed compared to 76% of their counterparts without disabilities, and this disparity appears to be increasing over time (Houtenville & Ruiz, 2012;Kraus,2017;Lauer& Houtenville, 2017). Similar employment gaps have been observed in other industrialized countries. For instance, the employment rate among working-age Canadians living with a disability is 49%, while it is 79% for those without a disability (Turcotte, 2014), and in the European Union, these figures are 47.3 and 66.9%, respectively (Eurostat, 2017). While the World Health Organization (WHO, 2011) shows that employment rates vary across countries, Bthe bottom line is that, all over the world, a person with a disability is less likely to be employed than a person without a disability, often much less so^(Heymann, Stein, & de Elvira Moreno, 2014,p.4).Even when employed, workers with disabilities are more likely than their counterparts without disabilities to report underemployment, involuntary part-time or contingent employment, and lower than average salaries (Brault, 2012; Konrad, Moore, Ng, Doherty, & Breward, 2013; see also Baldridge, Beatty, Konrad, & Moore, 2016). Notwithstanding legislation specifically targeted at promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities (e.g., Americans with Disabilities Act [1990] of 1991), the employment participation of people with disabilities is still lagging when compared to their able-bodied, and comparably educated, counterparts (WHO, 2011;see also Colella & Bruyère, 2011;Kruse&Schur,2003).

A primary reason for the lower participation rates and underemployment of individuals with disabilities is that employers often harbor pessimistic views about the work-related abilities of these individuals. We note that these pessimistic views have been well-documented in the literature (e.g., Gold, Oire, Fabian, & Wewiorksi, 2012; Hernandez et al., 2008 For many people with disabilities, finding and sustaining work is a challenge. Indeed, it has been estimated that in the United States (US), only one in three (34.9%) individuals with disabilities are employed compared to 76% of their counterparts without disabilities, and this disparity appears to be increasing over time (Houtenville & Ruiz, 2012;Kraus,2017;Lauer& Houtenville, 2017). Similar employment gaps have been observed in other industrialized countries. For instance, the employment rate among working-age Canadians living with a disability is 49%, while it is 79% for those without a disability (Turcotte, 2014), and in the European Union, these figures are 47.3 and 66.9%, respectively (Eurostat, 2017).

While the World Health Organization (WHO, 2011) shows that employment rates vary across countries, Bthe bottom line is that, all over the world, a person with a disability is less likely to be employed than a person without a disability, often much less so^(Heymann, Stein, & de Elvira Moreno, 2014,p.4).Even when employed, workers with disabilities are more likely than their counterparts without disabilities to report underemployment, involuntary part-time or contingent employment, and lower than average salaries (Brault, 2012; Konrad, Moore, Ng, Doherty, & Breward, 2013; see also Baldridge, Beatty, Konrad, & Moore, 2016). Notwithstanding legislation specifically targeted at promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities (e.g., Americans with Disabilities Act [1990] of 1991), the employment participation of people with disabilities is still lagging when compared to their able-bodied, and comparably educated, counterparts (WHO, 2011;see also Colella & Bruyère, 2011;Kruse&Schur,2003).

A primary reason for the lower participation rates and underemployment of individuals with disabilities is that employers often harbor pessimistic views about the work-related abilities of these individuals. We note that these pessimistic views have been well-documented in the literature (e.g., Gold, Oire, Fabian, & Wewiorksi, 2012; Hernandez et al., 2008 The functional division of urban activities (mainly work and residence) has led people to use urban space separately. The aim of this research is to observe how urban planning affects women in different ways. The patriarchal conception where men’s‘natural attributes’are to provide protection and be the source of the family’s economic income, i.e. productive activities, while the women’s role are the reproductive and care activities have a strong influence on how cities are shaped. This gender division has led to the idea that productive and reproductive roles are carried out in completely different, distant, and unrelated spaces, segregating women in the domestic sphere and excluding them from the public sphere (McDowell, 2000;Moser, 1989;Valcárcel, 2013).

Furthermore, both genders are confronted with the friction of distance and the principle of return in a greater or lesser degree. Individuals’experience is based on the limitation to carry out their daily activities within a radius of action from home, the selection of different services or destinations to satisfy people’s need and consequent patterns of displacement are traditionally determined by the availability of time, budget, and transportation mode. However, aspects such as age, income, primary activity and gender will have a level of influence on this (Ellegård & Vilhelmson, 2004;Næss, 2006).According to the evidence of co-location between housing and employment provided by Suárez Lastra and Delgado Campos (2007,p. 2010), distance has a more significant impact on the location of paid work. Although revealing, their research does not analyse the information by gender, which would reveal very different realities of employability for each household member. Salazar (1999, p. 132) makes it very clear that, in the specific case of women, the domestic organisation (whose immediate environment of activity is the house and the neighbourhood) must be added to the labour market, the urban structure, the location of residential areas, and the public transportation network, aspects faced by the population in general. Also, Hanson and Pratt (1991,2003), Fanning Madden (1981), and Mojica Segovia (2014) pointed this out in their writings.

This study comprises four variables associated with the reproductive work of working women living in the Monterrey Metropolitan Zone -MMZ- Main Map: marital status, number of children, age of the youngest child, and relationship to the head of house-hold. The particular interest is to relate them to the geographical location of women’s paid work and determine if there are differences in the distance and concentration of women between the female productive work-residence trajectories

The functional division of urban activities (mainlywork and residence) has led people to use urbanspace differently and, for our study, has a direct impacton the women’s participation in the labour market.This is mainly due to the time and costs it takes to commute, considering that women’s social roledemands their presence in and around the home formost of the day.Our research shows this limitation or spatial segre-gation around the municipality of residence, whichtends to be more evident as the variables studied represent greater reproductive works. Correspon-dences are observed between the geographic locationof women’s paid work and marital status, the numberof children, the age of the youngest child, and relation-ship with the head of the household.

We observed that working women in the MMZ with fewer opportunities to leave their municipalityreasons are those who live with a partner, those withmore than one child, those with at least one childbetween the ages of 0 and 9, or those identified asthe head of the household, given their dual reproduc-tive/productive role. In other words, these women aremore likely to suffer spatial segregation on an urbanscale due to their economic activity. Moreover, studies on the Mexican context that ana-lyse urban structure and form, as well as the structureand concentration of jobs within the city (Guerraet al., 2018;Monkkonen et al., 2018,2020;Suárez Lastra& Delgado Campos, 2007), allow us to see a little further.

Since such studies observe the highest concen-trations of employment in the urban geographic centre,we can assume that women with greater urban andeconomic segregation are those who inhabit peripheralareas, commonly related to lower income and edu-cation level. These conditions, coupled with high dom-estic workloads, would pose a significant challenge.This study raised relevant questions related to thetype of economic/working activity these womencarry out, if the salary is significantly different betweenjobs according to their location, and what type of paidwork and income level can aspire a woman with astrong reproductive workload.

Possible answers tothese issues can be found in the Doctoral dissertationby Hernández-Reyes (2021).NOTE. We consider it necessary to point out thepatriarchal influence in the language used by the insti-tutional apparatus of our country (Mexico), which isreflected in the census data analysed.The term working women (translated from Span-ish mujeres ocupadas) states that women who do not carry out some type of economic activityclassified in the census do not work, even whenthey do some other sort of activity, e.g. domesticand caregiving work.

It only gives value to paidwork and makes invisible the rest of the tasks that do not involve a monetary flow. Pérez Orozco(2014) points out that the androcentric bias on which notions such as those of economy and work‘are founded on the absence of women, denies econ-omic relevance to spheres associated with femininity(the private-domestic sphere, the home, and unpaidwork), and uses the male experience in markets todefine economic normality’(p. 37).

The other term we would like to point out is head ofhousehold. It indicates the millenary inheritance of thearchaic state in the organisation of present-day Wes-tern society. Since then, men family head, the patri-arch, ‘allocated the resources of society to theirfamilies the way the state allocated the resources ofsociety to them’(Lerner, 1990, p. 315). The economicaspect is once again at the centre of daily life, the axisaround which the rest of the activities that make updaily life revolve.

It is necessary to recognise that under the patriar-chal influence, significant omissions are made, suchas the fact that the database consulted (the Censussample) does not contain information related to thepaternity of men. It is not possible to know whethermen are fathers and, much less, how many childrenthey have, perhaps because having children is exclu-sively feminine.All the above is evidence of the durability and per-meability of a social model whose development beganvery long ago: the patriarchal system, which reachesareas as disparate as the city and language.

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