Reframing the Dualistic Nature of Ride-Hailing for Women: Empowerment Versus Adaptive Preferences

The rapid expansion of ride-hailing services has transformed urban mobility, raising critical questions about their role in promoting gender equity. This study investigates whether ride-hailing services empower women by enhancing their mobility or whether they simply reflect adaptive preferences shaped by existing structural inequalities. Using Chengdu, China, as a case study, this article employs survey data from 1,006 respondents and mobile phone trajectory data covering more than 96,000 trips to analyze the gendered impacts of ride-hailing. The findings reveal that women, particularly those with lower incomes, higher education levels, and children, perceive enhanced mobility through ride-hailing, although this improvement is unevenly distributed across neighborhoods. Ride-hailing complements public transport where metro services are less accessible, but gender disparities in travel distances and activity spaces persist. The article concludes that ride-hailing services exhibit a dual role: empowering women in certain contexts and reinforcing existing constraints. These findings have significant implications for urban transport planning, calling for a nuanced approach to promoting gender-equitable mobility systems.