How safe do women feel in cities, and why? Researchers Petrus te Braak and Theun Pieter van Tienoven from BRISPO (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) have published a major systematic literature review in the journal Cities. Their study, "Navigating the City: A Systematic Literature Review on Women's Perceived Safety in Urban Public Space" brings together for the first time all available peer-reviewed research (published between 2002 and 2024) on women’s safety perceptions in urban environments worldwide.
Drawing on 50 high-quality studies, the review offers a clear and accessible conceptual framework that highlights how personal, social, environmental, and temporal factors interact to shape women’s feelings of safety or insecurity. The findings stress that safety perceptions are not only a matter of gender, but are also influenced by age, socio-economic background, social cohesion, urban design, maintenance, and everyday temporal rhythms, such as the difference between day and night.
This publication forms part of the MOMENT-GPS project (Mapping Gendered Perceived Safety and the Use of Public Spaces in Brussels, Belgium), funded by the Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The project aims to contribute to more inclusive urban planning by illuminating the lived experiences of different groups of women in public spaces.
The full publication is available in Cities [Volume 162, 2025, Article 105907], and can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105907
Citation: Te Braak, P., & van Tienoven, T. P. (2025). Navigating the city: A systematic literature review on women’s perceived safety in urban public space. Cities, 162, 105907.
