What Explains the Gender Gap in Schlepping? Testing Various Explanations for Gender Differences in Household-Serving Travel

As women increasingly entered the labor force over the past few decades, dual-earner households became more widespread, and many longstanding gender differences in travel began to converge. While gender differences in paid work and commuting have been studied extensively, the household division of labor and its relationship to household-serving travel has received less attention. This article examines this issue by asking (1) what is the gender division of household-serving travel in the U.S. today? And (2) what explains this division of travel and (by extension) household responsibilities? To answer these questions the authors draw on detailed time use surveys from a nationally representative sample of adults to examine patterns of child-serving and grocery shopping travel in the U.S. in the 2000s. A variety of economic and cultural theories have been proffered to explain the gender division of household labor and household-serving travel, and the authors find at least some empirical support in the data for all of them. But in comparison with economic explanations for gender differences in household-serving travel, they find the most consistent and compelling evidence for cultural explanations; for example, they observe substantial gender differences in child- and household-serving trips prior to and apart from household formation. Moreover, even in households where women earn more, are better educated, and work more hours than their partners, these women still make 1.5 times as many child-serving trips and 1.4 times as many grocery trips as their male partners. Whether disproportionate household-serving labor and travel burdens borne by women will continue depends on whether gender socialization norms begin to change more quickly or remain deeply embedded.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE70 Women's Issues in Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Taylor, Brian D
  • Ralph, Kelcie M
  • Smart, Michael
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Children; Culture (Social sciences); Economic and social factors; Gender; Households; Travel behavior; Travel surveys; Trip purpose
• Identifier Terms: American Time Use Survey
• Uncontrolled Terms: Division of labor; Grocery shopping
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Society; Transportation (General); I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01515748
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4489
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 25 2014 9:15AM