Research on Women's Issues in Transportation, Volume 1: Conference Overview and Plenary Papers (2006) / Chapter Skim
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7Understanding Women's and Men's Travel Patterns The Research Challenge Sandra Rosenbloom, University of Arizona Men and women have long had different travel patterns. However, there is increasing convergence in those travel patterns, at least at the aggregate level.
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The trends in women's and men's travel patterns over time are evaluated here, with an analysis of where, when, and why those patterns appear to be converging. Consideration is given to whether variables other than sex better explain travel differences between men and women and whether currently observed travel differences are likely to disappear.
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As more women have gone to work their miles traveled, trips made, driver licensing, and vehicle ownership have increased substantially. And it is no surprise that women have become more dependent on the private car to engage in their increased travel (24, 27)
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changing distribution of household responsibilities is the changing composition of families and households.1 Today a substantial share of all U.S. households are composed of only one person (37)
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and health combined with additional technology aids to assist driving are anticipated to produce continuing growth in the elderly VMT levels.
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hold responsibilities their travel patterns may also converge. In fact, in 2001 U.S.
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flexible work force -- those who work full time but for less than a full year or who work at different locations or different schedules over a week or month for the same employer.
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appeared in most industrial countries.2 This change has created some significant pressures for changes in how family members relate to one another and how they divide household responsibilities. As suggested in an earlier section and in some papers given at this conference, the division of household responsibilities is becoming more equal in response to these pressures.
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Although the subject is not much discussed in the travel behavior literature, it has been known for decades that women are overwhelmingly the persons responsible for direct care of aging parents and in-laws (88, 89)
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reflect the fact that their travel is still more constrained by their childcare and other responsibilities than is that of men. Table 5 shows that there are important differences in trip purpose3 between otherwise comparable men and women, but particularly among those with children.
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mother families grew from 3 million to 10.1 million, or a 237% increase; single-father families grew from 0.39 million to 2.3 million, or a 490% increase (43, 45)
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job growth has occurred in the suburbs (97, 98)
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1995 and 2001, the 2001 NHTS shows that they still take fewer trips in all age cohorts older than 65, including the youngest (65 to 69)
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travel patterns will continue to differ from those of older men in important ways.
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similar and when and if new or hybrid patterns are evolving that converge or diverge by sex and why. CONCLUSIONS AND NEEDED RESEARCH Summary Overall, women's travel patterns are likely to continue to diverge substantially from men's in a variety of areas even as they continue to converge on some aggregate measures.
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Probably the most significant problem with many quantitative approaches to understanding travel behavior is that researchers are required to make large and sometimes debatable assumptions in all aspects of their research and modeling. For example, many studies begin by assuming that women's travel will not differ from men's in ways that cannot be explained by traditional socioeconomic variables.
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• Evaluate the implications of differences between men and women in attitudes, beliefs, preferences, and values about the underlying causes of travel (security or safety concerns, concerns about the driving task, willingness to be a passenger rather than a driver, etc.) ; • Expand the knowledge of the travel behavior of groups long studied and fill in the data blanks for groups about whom little is known, such as younger single adults living alone and those working part time; and • Identify travel differences or similarities by sex associated with land use and community design and the availability of different transport options for both young and older adults as well as for their children and grandchildren.
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9. Al-Balbissi, A
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37. Martin, G., and V
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72. Preston, V., S
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Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp.
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of Public Health, Vol.
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