Abstract
The existing literature of emerging markets fails to provide evidence to clarify if people choose their residential location based on commuting to work or other socioeconomic or household factors. The present paper seeks to provide such evidence in South Asia using the case study of a small city in Pakistan. This exploratory study was facilitated by primary data collected from 365 adults in Hafizabad, Pakistan, using face-to-face interviews in 2018. Two research questions were answered: (1) with what socioeconomic or mobility-related variables are the residential self-selections correlated? (2) how strong is the possible association of commuting to work to residential location choices compared to other factors, including social, economic, and family-related issues? The results of Chi-square tests and Proportional Reduction in Error analyses show that the three variables of neighborhood place, gender, and housing tenure type are associated with residential location choices. These findings are partly in line with studies on high-income countries, but gender and housing tenure are more specific to developing countries. Moreover, results of a Binary Logistic model show that marital status and house ownership of other household members define whether people choose their living place based on commuting rather than other socioeconomic and household issues. The finding of the latter variable contrasts with behaviors in high-income countries, whereas the former variable has some similarities. These findings highlight some contextual differences between house location selection in South Asia and other regions.
Highlights
Introduction iationsThe correlations between residential location choices of the inhabitants of urban areas in high-income countries with different behaviors such as urban mobility choices are important for urban transportation researchers because they can influence the correlations between urban travel behaviors and the built environment
Based on the literature review and the knowledge gaps, the current study seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) with what socioeconomic or mobility-related variables are the residential self-selections correlated? (2) how strong is the possible association of commuting to work to residential location choices compared to other factors, including social, economic, and family-related issues? This study hypothesizes that unlike some studies conducted in Western countries, residential location choices in South Asian countries are less influenced by commuting to work
According to the approach explained in the methodology section, the categorical variable of residential location choice was tested against ten variables
Summary
The correlations between residential location choices of the inhabitants of urban areas in high-income countries with different behaviors such as urban mobility choices are important for urban transportation researchers because they can influence the correlations between urban travel behaviors and the built environment. If residential self-selections meaningfully affect the mobility behaviors such as mode choice and travel distances, including commuting lengths, it would be difficult to claim that the built environment can influence mobility behaviors and decisions. This may be true, in relation to selecting residential places near the workplace to shorten the commuting distance. It is important to understand residential location choices which define their commuting characteristics.
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