Sex, Race, and the Journey to Work: Tracking & Testing Convergence & Divergence Trends Using a National Panel, 1985 to 2005

This study uses a powerful, newly assembled panel dataset to update and better integrate the literature on the journey to work and its linkages to gender and to race. Dozens of studies of gender and the commute indicate that while women as a group drive more each year, and tend to take more trips than men, the average male commutes farther and longer. Recent studies show limited signs of convergence, but these vary markedly by race and place. Some have argued that the so-called gender gap in commuting actually only applies to white women, and then only to commute times. Spatial mismatch, an interpretive label for how commute lengths differ with race, is alternatively explained by housing discrimination, or by broader economic and cultural factors affecting the distances between minority (especially Black) neighborhoods and employment. Here, too, there have been recent signs of narrowing, though less so in the presence of job decentralization. While gender differences in labor market segmentation are central to this debate, race and gender are rarely examined together. In his study we will analyze these interdependent trends in tandem using individual-level, longitudinal national data containing rich detail on family structure. We will analyze the national sample from the American Housing Survey, comprising 11 waves from 1985 to 2005. The model specification conforms to urban form theory, the model estimation uses panel techniques, and the potential endogeneity of wages and land costs will be addressed statistically.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $66418.00
• Sponsor Organizations:

  California Department of Transportation

  1227 O Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95843

  Department of Transportation

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of California, Berkeley

  Transportation Center
  2614 Dwight Way, 2nd Floor
  Berkely, CA  United States  94720-1782
• Principal Investigators:

  Crane, Randall

• Start Date: 20080801
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20090731
• Source Data: RiP Project 20334

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Commuters; Gender; Labor market; Neighborhoods; Race; Research projects; Socioeconomic factors; Travel surveys; Work trips
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01459689
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University of California Transportation Center (UCTC)
• Files: UTC, RIP, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 1:10PM