The gender turnaround: Young women now travelling more than young men

Sara Tilley,Donald Houston

doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.06.022

Abstract

Daily travel mobility is on a downward trend in several developed economies, including the UK. This paper examines how mobility trends are differentiated by gender and birth cohort. Over the last decade, young adult women in Britain have come to have greater weekly mobility than their male counterparts. Until recently, women have consistently had lower mobility than men - suggesting that this finding could be a significant break with the past. This gender turnaround is driven mainly by young men travelling substantially less today than previous generations of young men. We find that younger cohorts of women travel are travelling further as they age, whilst younger cohorts of men are no longer becoming more mobile as they approach early mid-life, traditionally a life course peak in travel mobility. Possible reasons for the greater mobility of young women than young men are discussed and areas for future research identified.

Highlights

Recent studies have observed declining mobility in developed economies, including the UK, which has been termed ‘peak car’ (Goodwin, 2012a, Metz, 2013)
These figures demonstrate that age effects are present as weekly mobility changes over the life course, associated with different activities at various life stages
We can only discuss the characteristics of area types, rather than compare regional differences but we find that geographical differences are evident in the Multiple log linear regression (MLLR) models, in relation to household types

Summary

Introduction

Recent studies have observed declining mobility in developed economies, including the UK, which has been termed ‘peak car’ (Goodwin, 2012a, Metz, 2013). Existing explanations for this decline are still emerging but are currently focused on economic factors, the reversal of population decline in cities (where trips are shorter), rise of IT use, and falling rates of driving licence holdership amongst younger people, men (Goodwin, 2012a). They suggest that car use has reached a level which is in equilibrium with current transport provision and land use patterns

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