IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/uncgec/2016_004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Drives Gender Differences in Commuting Behavior: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Gray Kimbrough

    (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics)

Abstract

This study takes advantage of a large, nationally representative dataset, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), to examine gender differences in commute character and time. A method of calculating commuting time that accounts for stops along the journey is applied to ATUS data; analysis of gender differences in the number, type, and length of stops demonstrates the need for this commuting measure. Explanations for women’s shorter commutes are reviewed and tested alongside predicted relationships from a simple labor supply model. Controlling for marital status and the presence of children, women are more likely to be accompanied by children for their commute, and women tend to make longer stops than men. Multivariate regression results support two previously proposed explanations for the gender commuting time gap, based on gender differences in wages and types of jobs held. Contrary to the previously proposed Household Responsibility Hypothesis, this analysis provides evidence that greater household responsibility does not explain women’s shorter commutes.

Suggested Citation

  • Gray Kimbrough, 2016. "What Drives Gender Differences in Commuting Behavior: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey," UNCG Economics Working Papers 16-4, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:uncgec:2016_004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://bae.uncg.edu/econ/files/2016/06/GenderCommutingJune2016-2.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    2. White, Michelle J, 1986. "Sex Differences in Urban Commuting Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 368-372, May.
    3. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    4. Cogan, John F, 1981. "Fixed Costs and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 945-963, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Gray Kimbrough, 2015. "Measuring Commuting in the American Time Use Survey," UNCG Economics Working Papers 15-2, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    7. White, Michelle J., 1988. "Location choice and commuting behavior in cities with decentralized employment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 129-152, September.
    8. Wales, Terence J., 1978. "Labour supply and commuting time : An empirical study," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 215-226, October.
    9. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2015. "Excess Commuting in the US: Differences between the Self-Employed and Employees," IZA Discussion Papers 9425, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Black, Dan A. & Kolesnikova, Natalia & Taylor, Lowell J., 2014. "Why do so few women work in New York (and so many in Minneapolis)? Labor supply of married women across US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 59-71.
    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. Gray Kimbrough, 2015. "Measuring Commuting in the American Time Use Survey," UNCG Economics Working Papers 15-2, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    2. Liu, Yang & Shen, Ruolan & He, Mingwei & Li, Xuefeng & Shi, Zhuangbin, 2025. "Gender differences in commuting travel mode choices among young adults: A spatial heterogeneity perspective," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).

    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. Gray Kimbrough, 2016. "What Drives Gender Differences in Commuting? Evidence from the American Time Use Survey," 2016 Papers pki275, Job Market Papers.
    2. Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau, Eva & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2010. "Labour supply and commuting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 82-89, July.
    3. Shihe Fu & V Brian Viard, 2019. "Commute costs and labor supply: evidence from a satellite campus," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 723-752.
    4. Eva Gutierrez-i-Puigarnau & Jos van Ommeren, 2009. "Labour Supply and Commuting: Implications for Optimal Road Taxes," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-008/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. repec:dgr:uvatin:20090008 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. José M. Casado-Díaz & Raquel Simón-Albert & Hipólito Simón, 2023. "Gender Differences in Commuting: New Evidence from Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 907-941, October.
    7. Michaela Fuchs & Anja Rossen & Antje Weyh & Gabriele Wydra‐Somaggio, 2021. "Where do women earn more than men? Explaining regional differences in the gender pay gap," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(5), pages 1065-1086, November.
    8. Carta, Francesca & De Philippis, Marta, 2018. "You've come a long way, baby. Husbands' commuting time and family labour supply," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 25-37.
    9. Borghorst, Malte & Mulalic, Ismir & van Ommeren, Jos, 2024. "Commuting, gender and children," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Ito, Takahiro, 2009. "Caste discrimination and transaction costs in the labor market: Evidence from rural North India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 292-300, March.
    11. Palacios, Saúl, 2021. "Desplazamientos y autoempleo en Francia: diferencias por género [Commuting y self-employment in France: gender differences]," MPRA Paper 106555, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Heather M Stephens & John Deskins, 2018. "Economic Distress and Labor Market Participation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(5), pages 1336-1356.
    13. Xiaoyu Wang & Jinquan Gong & Chunan Wang, 2020. "How Does Commute Time Affect Labor Supply in Urban China? Implications for Active Commuting," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-18, June.
    14. Jordy Meekes & Wolter H. J. Hassink, 2023. "Endogenous local labour markets, regional aggregation and agglomeration economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 13-25, January.
    15. Fuchs, Michaela & Rossen, Anja & Weyh, Antje & Wydra-Somaggio, Gabriele, 2019. "Why do women earn more than men in some regions? : Explaining regional differences in the gender pay gap in Germany," IAB-Discussion Paper 201911, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    16. Kawabata, Mizuki & Abe, Yukiko, 2018. "Intra-metropolitan spatial patterns of female labor force participation and commute times in Tokyo," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 291-303.
    17. Oliva, Andres, 2021. "Estimación del tiempo de desplazamiento al trabajo para los trabajadores portugueses: diferencias entre autoempleados y asalariados [Estimation of commuting time for Portuguese workers: differences," MPRA Paper 107176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Gutierrez, Federico H., 2018. "Commuting Patterns, the Spatial Distribution of Jobs and the Gender Pay Gap in the U.S," GLO Discussion Paper Series 282, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto, 2011. "Commuting Time and Labour Supply: A Causal Effect?," IZA Discussion Papers 5529, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Belloc, Ignacio, 2021. "El tiempo de desplazamiento al lugar de trabajo en el Reino Unido: Diferencias entre asalariados y autoempleados [Commuting time in the United Kingdom: Differences between wage-earners and self-emp," MPRA Paper 108260, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    commuting; gender; household travel behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ris:uncgec:2016_004. 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: Albert Link (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edncgus.html .

    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.