Combining Paid Work and Care Work in Suburbia? Planning Perspectives and Everyday Experiences in Munich‐Freiham (Germany)

The compatibility of caring responsibilities and paid employment (or lack thereof) has been subject to debate in urban planning and related disciplines for decades. In short, criticism from a feminist perspective is that urban planning privileges the spatial needs and demands of paid employment over those of caregiving, thereby discriminating against caregivers. This was especially true for—often mono-functional and insufficiently connected—suburban settlements and was seen as an expression of societal power relations mediated through (sub)urban planning. In our contribution, we analyse planning efforts for compatibility and contrast them with the daily life experiences of employed caregivers in Munich-Freiham, Germany. We ask whether and how planners and other local actors in Freiham reflect on and address the compatibility-related problems of earlier suburban developments and how planning measures and intentions relate to daily life experiences. We draw on document analysis and interviews with planning experts and residents with care responsibility. Our data reveal that care and paid work are still planned for separately, which means that households that deviate from an implicitly imagined “standard” experience significant and unintended friction in daily life.