Exploring Gender Differences through the Lens of Spatiotemporal Behavior Patterns in a Cultural Market: A Case Study of Panjiayuan Market in Beijing, China

Abstract

Markets are more than commercial places with high mobility, greatly contributing to urban vitality, social inclusion, and even local identity, which have all been studied extensively. However, as one of the market types, the cultural market contains a highly gendered feature in our contemporary cities that has rarely been explored. Therefore, this article presents a survey that uses spatiotemporal behavior mapping (STBM) to collect gender-related behavior patterns across four sites, five activity layers, four age groups, and three time dimensions in Beijing Panjiayuan cultural market, China. Our results show that all sites are generally dominated by males. Although mobility is higher on weekends than weekdays, the number of women decreases and the number of men increases at the weekend, resulting in a higher gender ratio. The gender ratio in the 19–36 and 54+ year groups synchronized decline with mobility, whereas other age groups did not appear to be significantly affected. More specifically, in the buying and common activities layers, the ratio of men to women at the two sites with higher mobility increased, and vice versa. It is the first study to present the effect of spatial mobility on gender differences in a cultural market by using objective spatiotemporal data. Our findings provide a scientific basis for the optimization and design practice of culture-related spaces to create a more equal and inclusive urban environment.