IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v51y2014i4p634-654.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Living, Moving and Travel Behaviour of the Growing American Solo: Implications for Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Devajyoti Deka

Abstract

Between 1930 and 2010 the share of single-person, or solo, households in the US increased from 6 per cent to almost 28 per cent, whereas the share of married-couple households decreased from 79 per cent to 49 per cent. Yet solo households have received little attention in urban planning and transport research. Given the significant increase of solo households in US cities, this study identifies the distinctive dwelling, moving and travel characteristics of the American solo households, and examines the reasons for their attraction to cities. It uses historical data from census Public Use Microdata Samples and recent national data from the American Housing Survey and the National Household Travel Survey. Descriptive statistics, basic statistical tests, binary logit models and Heckman sample selection models are used to examine various relationships. Some of the transport-related and environmental implications of the findings are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Devajyoti Deka, 2014. "The Living, Moving and Travel Behaviour of the Growing American Solo: Implications for Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(4), pages 634-654, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:4:p:634-654
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098013492233
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098013492233
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098013492233?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesus Fernández-Villaverde & Dirk Krueger, 2007. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: Facts from Consumer Expenditure Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 552-565, August.
    2. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Li Gan & Victoria Vernon, 2003. "Testing the Barten Model of Economies of Scale in Household Consumption: Toward Resolving a Paradox of Deaton and Paxson," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1361-1377, December.
    4. Adam Isen & Betsey Stevenson, 2010. "Women's Education and Family Behavior: Trends in Marriage, Divorce and Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 107-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bhat, Chandra R. & Guo, Jessica Y., 2007. "A comprehensive analysis of built environment characteristics on household residential choice and auto ownership levels," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 506-526, June.
    6. Matthew Roorda & Antonio Páez & Catherine Morency & Ruben Mercado & Steven Farber, 2010. "Trip generation of vulnerable populations in three Canadian cities: a spatial ordered probit approach," Transportation, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 525-548, May.
    7. Brownstone, David & Golob, Thomas F., 2009. "The impact of residential density on vehicle usage and energy consumption," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 91-98, January.
    8. Peter Mieszkowski & Edwin S. Mills, 1993. "The Causes of Metropolitan Suburbanization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 135-147, Summer.
    9. Crane, Randall, 2007. "Is There a Quiet Revolution in Women's Travel? Revisiting the Gender Gap in Commuting," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt8nj9n8nb, University of California Transportation Center.
    10. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1998. "Economies of Scale, Household Size, and the Demand for Food," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 897-930, October.
    11. Lazear, Edward P & Michael, Robert T, 1980. "Family Size and the Distribution of Real Per Capita Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 91-107, March.
    12. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    13. Martin Browning & Pierre-André Chiappori & Arthur Lewbel, 2013. "Estimating Consumption Economies of Scale, Adult Equivalence Scales, and Household Bargaining Power," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1267-1303.
    14. Becker, Gary S & Landes, Elisabeth M & Michael, Robert T, 1977. "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1141-1187, December.
    15. Nelson, Julie A, 1988. "Household Economies of Scale in Consumption: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1301-1314, November.
    16. Thomas J. Cooke & Stephen L. Ross, 1999. "Sample Selection Bias in Models of Commuting Time," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 36(9), pages 1597-1611, August.
    17. Scott, Darren M. & Horner, Mark W., 2008. "Examining The Role of Urban Form In Shaping People’s Accessibility to Opportunities: An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis," The Journal of Transport and Land Use, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, vol. 1(2), pages 89-119.
    18. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 11-26, Part II, .
    19. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Cervero, Robert, 1989. "Jobs-Housing Balancing and Regional Mobility," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7mx3k73h, University of California Transportation Center.
    21. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Maury, Benjamin, 2006. "Family ownership and firm performance: Empirical evidence from Western European corporations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 321-341, January.
    23. Dargay, Joyce & Hanly, Mark, 2007. "Volatility of car ownership, commuting mode and time in the UK," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 934-948, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Young, Mischa & Lachapelle, Ugo, 2017. "Transportation behaviours of the growing Canadian single-person households," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 41-50.
    2. Yingling Fan, 2017. "Household structure and gender differences in travel time: spouse/partner presence, parenthood, and breadwinner status," Transportation, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 271-291, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karbasi, A. & Mohammadzadeh, S.H., 2018. "Estimating Household Expenditure Economies of Scale in Iran," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277152, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Young, Mischa & Lachapelle, Ugo, 2017. "Transportation behaviours of the growing Canadian single-person households," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 41-50.
    3. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    4. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Khushboo Surana & Frederic Vermeulen, 2020. "Marital Matching, Economies of Scale, and Intrahousehold Allocations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 823-837, October.
    5. Avner Ahituv & Robert Lerman, 2011. "Job turnover, wage rates, and marital stability: How are they related?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 221-249, June.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    7. Blanden, Joanne, 2005. "Love and Money: Intergenerational Mobility and Marital Matching on Parental Income," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2005272e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    8. Gould, Eric D. & Paserman, M. Daniele, 2003. "Waiting for Mr. Right: rising inequality and declining marriage rates," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 257-281, March.
    9. Olivier Bargain & Olivier Donni & Prudence Kwenda, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Working Papers 2011-031, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    10. Perali, Federico, 2008. "The second Engel law: Is it a paradox?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1353-1377, November.
    11. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:103-204 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bargain, Olivier & Donni, Olivier & Magejo, Prudence, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire," IZA Discussion Papers 6029, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Julia A. Heath & David H. Ciscel, 1996. "Escaping the Fate of Sisyphus: Bargaining, Divorce, and Employment in the Patriarchal Family," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 1-19, March.
    14. Garrett Anstreicher, 2020. "Family Formation and the Great Recession," Working Papers 20-42, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    15. Deka, Devajyoti, 2013. "An explanation of the relationship between adults’ work trip mode and children’s school trip mode through the Heckman approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 54-63.
    16. Bindong Sun & Tinglin Zhang & Zhou He & Rui Wang, 2017. "Urban Spatial Structure And Motorization In China," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 470-486, June.
    17. Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül ; Zheng, Yu, 2016. "Missing Consumption Inequality: Direct Evidence from Individual Food Data," Economics Working Papers ECO2016/12, European University Institute.
    18. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia & Stichnoth, Holger, 2012. "You can’t be happier than your wife. Happiness gaps and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 110-130.
    20. Steven F. Koch, 2005. "Love and Addiction: The Importance of Commitment," Working Papers 200516, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    21. Davi B. Costa, 2021. "Benefits of marriage as a search strategy," Papers 2108.04885, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:4:p:634-654. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.