School trips in Germany: Gendered escorting practices

Abstract

Children’s trips have become a growing issue of interest in recent transport studies. This paper studies parental escort on children’s school trips in Germany. It uses binary logit regression models to look at social and spatial context factors simultaneously, as well as considering the gendering of parental escort, i.e. the allocation of escort trips to fathers and mothers. The results generally support other studies in terms of parental and children’s sociodemographics, and trip attributes. The results for parental employment complement previous, somewhat inconsistent results. Descriptive analysis sheds some light on the interplay between escort and travel mode, as well as on age and gender structures and their intersections with spatial context. The effects of spatial context in regression are mixed. Urban locations seem to be more suitable for the independent mobility of adolescents, but less suitable for smaller children. Within municipalities escort is less common in inner city areas with mixed land-use and a well-established public transport system. Shorter distances to school in areas with mixed land-use further encourage independence. As in other countries, women carry a disproportionate burden of escorting. In large cities fathers are more involved in child escort, suggesting more gender equity.