Intra-household Interactions Research Articles

The Role of Intra-Household Interactions and Personal Social Network Dispersion in Air Travel Frequency in the UK

This paper studies private air travel frequency among the UK population using a regression analysis. The analysis accounts for a large range of independent variables, including the respondents’ partners’ attributes, social network dispersion and migration background. We find that both having one’s best friends and/or close family members abroad is associated with more frequent flights. Partners’ friends living abroad also stimulate more frequent flights. Also, partners’ education level and long-standing illness or disability are, respectively, positively and negatively associated with flight frequency. First generation migration background is associated with increased flying, while higher-order generation migration background (i.e. having parents or grandparents who were born abroad) is not.

The relationship between determinants of husband–wife agreement and household climate change mitigation behavior

Reducing carbon emissions from household activities is an important element in achieving climate goals. Engagement in household climate change mitigation behaviors usually requires interaction and negotiation among household members. Congruence theory suggests that individual-determinants of climate change mitigation behavior are strongly influenced by household-level determinants, such as mutual agreement between couples, but few studies have empirically tested this hypothesis. Being a pioneer study of its kind in the field of climate change mitigation behavior, a unique dataset that contained the survey results of 152 married heterosexual couples in Taipei City, Taiwan was used to test the congruence effect on household climate change mitigation behaviors. Eight theoretical determinants of household climate change mitigation behaviors (five at individual-level and three at household-level) and the level of engagement in three household climate change mitigation behaviors were analyzed. Results from a response surface analysis suggested that none of the five individual-level determinants exhibited congruence effects, while two out of three household-level determinants exerted congruence effects on the behavior of energy-efficient appliance purchasing. In other words, based on the results of this study, married heterosexual couples having similar attitudes regarding household-level variables but not individual-level variables is a nonnegligible factor influencing engagement in household climate change mitigation behaviors that require a certain level of intrahousehold interactions.

Simulating intra-household interactions for in- and out-of-home activity scheduling

Various interactions, time arrangements, and constraints exist for individuals scheduling their day as a member of a household, which affect their in-home as well as out-of-home activity schedule. However, the existing activity-based models are mostly based on the individual decision-making process, which are limited in their demonstration of behaviour. We simulate multiple intra-household interaction dimensions within the same framework and capture the coordination of the activity scheduling decisions among all household members. Our approach adopts the Optimisation-based Activity Scheduling Integrating Simultaneous choice dimensions (OASIS) framework, which is at the level of isolated individuals and focuses on out-of-home activity schedules. We jointly simulate in- and out-of-home activities and incorporate interactions into the framework. Our framework contributes to the state-of-the-art in activity-based modelling by explicitly capturing multiple interactions within the same model, such as the allocation of the private vehicle to household members, dividing household maintenance responsibilities, escorting, joint activity participation, and sharing rides. We operationalise the model using time-use-survey data from the United Kingdom. The simulation results demonstrate the ability of the framework to capture complex intra-household interactions. We then demonstrate how these interactions can cause individuals to deviate from their schedules planned in isolation. This is a general framework applicable to different household compositions and available resources.

A tour-based mode choice model accommodating the influence of attitudes, perceptions, and inter- and intra-household interactions

A tour-based mode choice model accommodating the influence of attitudes, perceptions, and inter- and intra-household interactions

Understanding the role of household modality style on first and last mile travel mode choice and public transit station choice

From a public transit perspective, the first and last mile (FLM) problem emerges from a lack of adequate connectivity between stations and trip origins and destinations. The empirical literature on FLM travel has shown that passengers travel longer distances to access stations with good transit services. However, previous studies are yet to explore how individual household members interact to find ways to satisfy household travel needs (i.e., intra-household interactions) and how this is shaped by variations in household preference. To this end, capturing the intra-household interactions, this study aims to account for the heterogeneity in group decision making in FLM travel mode and station choice by considering two distinct decision rules when making a travel choice: (1) selecting the best overall outcome; and (2) avoiding frustration or regret. Latent class choice models are estimated by using a household travel survey for Brisbane, Australia. Results identified two household modality style groups: (1) Multimodal travellers accessing their nearest stations and walking averse for accessing non-nearest stations: Such households are likely to select the best overall outcome when making choices, given that they have fewer cars and participate in more joint travel; (2) car-oriented: Individuals within this household modality style are more likely to avoid regret or frustration when making travel mode and station choices as they tend to own more cars and participate less joint travel. The utility of this study lies in its capacity to guide policymakers to better target specific population groups and search for the appropriate transport integration policies.

How does commuting influence time use and domain and life satisfaction? Evidence from dual-earner couples with school-age children in a small Chinese city

Most evidence about commuting, and how it influences time use, domain satisfaction, and life satisfaction, comes from the individual level; very few studies have investigated this issue within a household. Using survey data collected from couples with school-age children in Ganyu (a small Chinese city), this paper explores how women and men schedule their time use around daily activities—including the commute—and how such time use contributes to different degrees of domain and life satisfaction. Results of our structural equation modeling showed that for men, longer commutes reduce the amount of time spent on leisure activities at home which in turn decreases life satisfaction. By contrast, longer commutes for women reduce the amount of time spent on household tasks, but such reduced time for household tasks does not impact satisfaction with household task allocation. In addition, intra-household interactions regarding time use were also found, which have implications for each spouse's satisfaction obtained in various domains and overall life. Moreover, we found no direct impact of commute time on commute satisfaction, which is related to short commute times and light traffic volumes in Ganyu. Our study suggests that policies aiming at enhancing individual subjective well-being should consider time use from both a household perspective and a cultural context.

Joint modeling of mode choice and travel distance with intra-household interactions

Joint modeling of mode choice and travel distance with intra-household interactions

Father involvement and early child development in a low-resource setting

Evidence on the role of father involvement in children's development from low-resource settings is very limited and historically has only relied on maternal reports of father's direct engagement activities such as reading to the child. However, fathers can also potentially influence their children's development via greater positive involvement with the mother, such as by offering interpersonal support or sharing decision-making duties. Such positive intrahousehold interactions can benefit maternal mental health and wellbeing, and ultimately children's development. We use data collected from mothers, fathers and children in the context of the cluster randomized controlled trial evaluation of Msingi Bora, a responsive parenting intervention implemented across 60 villages in rural western Kenya, to explore the various pathways through which fathers may influence their children's outcomes. In an endline survey in Fall 2019 among a sample of 681 two-parent households with children aged 16–34 months, fathers reported on measures of their behaviors towards children and with mothers, mothers reported on their wellbeing and behaviors, and interviewers assessed child cognitive and language development with the Bayley Scales. In adjusted multivariate regression analyses we found that greater father interpersonal support to mothers and greater participation in shared household decision-making were positively associated with children's development. These associations were partially mediated through maternal wellbeing and behaviors. We found no association between fathers' direct engagement in stimulation activities with children and children's outcomes. Inviting fathers to the program had no impact on their involvement or on any maternal or child outcomes, and fathers attended sessions at low rates. Overall, our results show the potential promises and challenges of involving fathers in a parenting intervention in a rural low-resource setting. Our findings do highlight the importance of considering intrahousehold pathways of influence in the design of parenting interventions involving fathers.

The role of household modality style in first and last mile travel mode choice

In the context of public transport, the first and last mile (FLM) travel refers to access to or egress from public transport stations. The poor connection between trip origins and destinations impedes the transition towards sustainable transport by requiring commuters to initially use their cars to travel the FLM. Existing literature identifies that the built and natural environment characteristics influence the travel mode choice for FLM travel. However, this literature has yet to consider how individual FLM travel mode choices are influenced by other household members, i.e., intra-household interactions. Here, this study draws on the notion of household modality style (i.e., reflecting heterogeneity in group decision-making) to account for intra-household interactions in FLM travel mode choice. For broadening the understanding of intra-household interactions, the decision of joint travel is also considered in the current study when understanding FLM travel mode choice. By defining the latent class structure at the household level using a household travel survey for Brisbane, Australia, the latent class nested logit models identify two household modality styles: (1) car-oriented; and (2) multimodal. When considering the decision of joint travel, each household modality style group has a specific preference towards FLM travel time, public transport accessibility, station density, and road network intersection density. These findings provide evidence for policymakers aiming to develop transport integration policies targeting specific household types. The results also have implications in practice through prioritisations of distinct household modality styles more likely to shift towards sustainable transport modes.

A copula-based approach to accommodate intra-household interaction in workers’ daily maintenance activity stop generation modeling

A new stop frequency model was developed to predict the daily number of maintenance activity stops made by individual household heads during a typical weekday. This new model was based on the modification of a conventional multivariate ordered probit (MOP) model by maintaining the probit assumption for the marginal distributions while introducing non-normal dependence among the error terms using copula functions. Therefore, the copula-based MOP model would relieve the restriction of imposing joint normality on the error terms in the conventional MOP model. The new MOP model would not only account for the intra-household interactions in stop-making decisions, but also allow the best functional form to be determined for representing dependencies among household heads. Using the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council's 2010/2011 regional household travel survey data, the copula-based MOP model was employed to examine stop-making behavior for individual household heads residing in New York City and its adjacent counties in Mid-Hudson Valley and New Jersey. Empirical results provided useful insights into the observed effects of socio-demographics, land use density, transportation service, and work schedule together with potential unobserved common effects on the inter-relatedness of spousal stop-making decisions at the household level. The results show that the MOP model with a Clayton copula structure provides the best data fits and there is a very strong positive dependence among error terms of stop-making equations. Furthermore, the dependence among the maintenance activity propensities of household heads is asymmetric, with a stronger tendency of household heads to simultaneously have low maintenance activity levels than to simultaneously have high maintenance activity levels.

Gender differences on the choices of a portfolio of climate change adaptation strategies in Ethiopia

Gender-based intra-household resource distributions constitute an important role in technology adoption-related decisions. Using a non-unitary household model and fitting an empirical adoption model for men and women individually and jointly, we examine how gender-based ownership, management and control of resources are correlated with adoptions of a portfolio of climate change adaptation strategies. Our analysis is based on recent household survey data with detailed household plot-level information about adaptation strategies, plot ownership, farm management decisions, and the right to control outputs from the plots among spouses within the household. The observed patterns of women’s ownership, management and economic rights of land suggest that all are important aspects of women’s bargaining power. We found compelling evidence regarding the overlapping effects of the different gender-linked-land-based rights on the adoption of a portfolio of adaptation strategies. The empirical findings emphasize the importance of incorporating gender-based intra-household interactions and joint resource ownership and decision making in climate change adaptation.

Activities and social interactions during disaster evacuation

Over the past decades there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters. The unpredictability of the circumstances around disasters means that proposed evacuation and transportation plans should be adaptable to the changing situation. Though the act of evacuating and the decision leading to it have been studied extensively, social aspects of the situation as well as other intermediate stops received less attention.This paper presents an investigation of data collected after a WUI fire that took place in Haifa, Israel, on November 24th, 2016. The results show individuals make multiple intermediate stops, before either evacuating or returning back home. A key goal within these stops is to visit home, which is a task undertaken the majority of households. A related phenomenon is that of waiting. The data shows that in many cases individuals report waiting at intermediate stops to learn more about the state of the event before taking further actions. With respect to their interactions, the results show that households tend to gather together during the event. This observation quantifies similar claims made in previous researches. These intra-household interactions are a main purpose of travel during such events. Within those, child pick-up stands out as a prominent activity. Child pick-up patterns suggest the involvement of a complex decision-making process which includes a wider social circle beyond household members. Thus, it is argued that the prediction of traffic during disasters would have to be based upon a full understanding of individuals' social along with intra-household spheres.

Exploratory analysis on worker's independent and joint travel patterns during weekdays and weekends

Understanding the intra-household interaction elements such as independent and joint activity participation and travel, over multiple days are very less explored, especially in the context of developing countries like India. This paper discusses the results of a study on the independent and joint travel of working people, during weekdays and weekends. Four types of daily activity-travel patterns are examined, such as Simple-Independent, Simple-Joint, Complex-Independent and Complex-Joint. Multinomial logit modelling is adopted to model the type of activity-travel pattern as a function of socio-demographic attributes and day of week variables. Models were developed for whole-week, weekdays and weekends separately. The data used for this study is collected using questionnaire drop off and pickup method, from Calicut city, Kerala State, India. Analyses presented here are based on a sample of 936 working people. The results indicate that males are more likely to perform Complex-Independent type of travel pattern, compared to females. The influence of age, gender, marital status, education level and exclusive vehicle availability are similar during weekdays and weekends. The presence of elderly persons, young children and students at home are observed to be significant in influencing the choice of activity-pattern types during weekdays, whereas during weekends, these variables did not emerge as significant ones. On Sunday, the possibility for joint travel is significantly higher than other days of the week. Studies in this line are expected to assist transportation planners in formulating day of week specific policy strategies.

A joint model of household time use and task assignment for elderly couples with multiple constraints.

Household time-use patterns are expected to reflect each household member’s daily activity participation and duration with intra-household interactions constrained by multiple budgets. Among various activities, the allocated activity derived from undertaking a household task is studied relatively less in the literature. Who will take an allocated activity is a discrete choice problem of household task assignment, and once a household member is assigned with one household task, other members will have more time to do other activities. To better understand household time-use patterns affected by household task assignment, this paper proposed a joint household-level multiple discrete-continuous extreme value-multinomial logit (MDCEV-MNL) model with multiple constraints. The Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) method combined with the simulation-based maximum likelihood estimation method is proposed to estimate the proposed model. Based on the household activity-travel data from Beijing of China, the proposed model is customized to explore elderly couples’ time-use patterns with intra-household interactions affected by household task assignment. Following the findings, policy implications are suggested to build an age-friendly society.

A household optimum utility approach for modeling joint activity-travel choices in congested road networks

This study proposes a new household optimum (HO) utility approach to model the intra-household interactions between household members by heterogeneous household type with different size in deciding their daily joint/solo activities and travel in congested road networks. In contrast to the conventional approach based on selfish choices of individuals to maximize their own utility, the proposed approach considers the activity-travel choices of all household members to maximize their household utility. Based on the HO utility approach, a new household activity-based network equilibrium model is proposed to simultaneously take into account the time-dependent household daily activity-travel scheduling and traffic assignment problems within a unified modeling framework. Two new household-oriented network equilibrium principles, namely, HO and household-based system optimum (HSO), are introduced together with the formulations of their equivalent mathematical programming problems. The analytical relationships between HO, HSO, conventional user equilibrium and individual-based system optimum, and their properties are then investigated. The proposed model is formulated as an equivalent variational inequality problem and solved by a diagonalization method in a supernetwork platform. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the merits of the proposed model, together with the key insights of the results that highlight the importance of considering joint activities and travel in travel demand forecasting and transportation network design.

Changes in travel mode use over the life course with partner interactions in couple households

Abstract The paper links the mobility biography approach with studies on intra-household interactions between partners in travel. It does so by developing a multi-group path model – a structural equation model without latent variables – of changes in car use over time as a function of changes in activity and trip patterns, path dependency (baseline car use), life course changes, and the respective respondent's partner's car use, activity and trip patterns. In terms of life course changes, the paper accounts for (gradual, rather than abrupt) changes in paid and unpaid worktime, and the birth of a first or higher-order (i.e. second or further) child. The model further categorises respondents by gender. It focuses on couples who share one car. A model for multi-car households is estimated for comparison. The results show multiple interactions between two partners at the baseline as well as over time. The effects of the birth of a child are less clear than expected. Generally, they suggest that increases in driving are primarily an outcome of higher-order births, especially in one-car households. Policy conclusions are (1) that it may be overly optimistic to assume that the birth of a child can be utilised as a 'window of opportunity' to reduce driving, and (2) that social interactions between partners should be taken into account in policy concepts.

Modeling household housing and car ownership decisions: a group decision-based time allocation approach

ABSTRACT Multitudes of household long-term decisions and daily activity-travel decisions are interdependent and bound together in some ways. This paper develops an integrated model that links long-term decisions like housing, vehicle ownership and short-term activity-travel decisions like time allocation to activity participation, so as to examine the interactions between long-terms decisions (in terms of expenditure tradeoff), as well as investigate household housing and car ownership decisions from the perspective of time allocation. A group decision approach is adopted to differentiate household members’ relative influence on consensual decision-making and capture intra-household interactions. The proposed model is applied to an empirical case study in Beijing to calibrate the parameters, demonstrate its applicability and analyze household members’ interactive decision-making on housing, car ownership and time use over in-home and out-of-home activities. This study will be helpful for gaining a deep understanding of spatial distribution of households, household car ownership levels and individuals’ activity-travel patterns.

Influences of the built environment on travel: A household-based perspective

The linkage between travel and the built environment has received extensive research attention over the past decades. However, the existing studies normally evaluate the built environment effect on travel from an individual-based perspective, neglecting the influence of intra-household interactions. We argue that individuals’ travel behavior is derived from the allocation of household tasks and resources (e.g., household vehicles) and the travel behaviors of household members are interdependent. This suggests that the built environment may impact one member’s travel behavior indirectly through its influence on others members’ travel choices. Thus, examining the travel impact of the built environment needs to consider intra-household interactions. This paper proposes to analyze the land use-travel relationship from a household perspective. We simultaneously examine the effects of the built environments of residential and work locations on married couples’ travel behaviors, considering the interrelations between their travels and controlling for both partners’ travel attitudes. The empirical study in Beijing, China indicates that the built environment effect on travel is different between partners. Two work environment factors influence the partners’ driving behaviors in opposite directions. Moreover, the wife’s travel behavior mediates the association between the built environment and the husband’s travel behavior. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the land use impact on travel behavior from the household perspective.

Modelling intra-household interactions in time-use and activity patterns of retired and dual-earner couples

The ageing population has become a global problem in which enhanced understanding on their activity-travel patterns is needed. In this paper, an analysis of retired and dual-earner couples is conducted to investigate how retirement would change their activity time use and patterns. In particular, intra-household interactions are considered, to explore the interdependencies among household members’ choices, social-demographics and travel behaviours. Household survey data from Hong Kong are employed.Results show that retirement would substantially increase joint participations and durations in various out-of-home activities. In addition, the importance of walkability is emphasised for retired couples in a mixed-land-use and transit-dependent city, and a potential social exclusion issue is identified for the low-income retired population. Scenarios analyses including changes of built environment and lifestyles (e.g., telecommuting, online shopping and food delivery) are conducted, to investigate how couples would reallocate the saved travel time. In summary, this paper highlights the importance of considering the group decision mechanism in a household for activity generation and travel demand forecasting. It sheds light on policies to improve quality-of-life for couples before and after the retirement.

Application of Machine Learning to Two Large-Sample Household Travel Surveys: A Characterization of Travel Modes

Even in a context of rapidly evolving transportation and information technologies, household travel surveys remain an essential source of information for transportation planning. Moreover, as planning authorities become increasingly concerned with reducing the use of the private car, travelers’ mode choice patterns should be reexamined. In this study, a machine learning algorithm (Random Forest) was employed to characterize the use of eight different travel modes observed in two consecutive household travel surveys undertaken in Montreal, Canada. The analysis incorporated roughly 160,000 observed trips. The Random Forest algorithm was trained on the 2008 survey data and applied to the 2013 survey. The usefulness of the algorithm was evaluated using two numerical representations: the confusion matrix and the importance matrix. The results of this evaluation showed that the Random Forest algorithm could generate a detailed and precise characterization of travel submarkets for four of the most commonly observed modes of travel (auto-drive, public transit, school bus, and walk) using 11 attributes of households, persons, and trips. However, the auto-passenger mode was difficult to characterize because of its dependence on unobserved intra-household interactions. The algorithm also had difficulty identifying users of rarely observed modes (park-and-ride, kiss-and-ride, bicycle), but performed better in this regard than a traditional mode choice model. Finally, traveler’s age and the spatial orientation of origin–destination pairs were found to be decisive factors in the use of the auto-drive mode. This finding, combined with the stability of mode choice patterns observed over 5 years, highlights the difficulty of significantly reducing automobile use.