Millennials and Car Ownership: Fewer Cars, Less Money
Americans are driving less. The changes are most pronounced among Millennials, those born in the 1980s and 1990s. Much ink has been spilled debating whether these changes in travel behavior are due to changing preferences or economic circumstances. In this paper, the authors use eight waves of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine recent changes in auto ownership among US families with a particular focus on Millennials. They find that today’s young adults do own fewer cars than previous generations did when they were young. However, when they control for whether young adults have become economically independent from their parents, i.e. left the nest, the authors find that economically independent young adults own slightly more cars than they would expect, given their low incomes and wealth. They caution planners to temper their enthusiasm about “peak car,” as this may largely be a manifestation of economic factors that could reverse in coming years.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB10 Standing Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Klein, Nicholas J
- Smart, Michael J
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
- Date: 2016
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 18p
- Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Automobile ownership; Socioeconomic factors; Travel behavior; Young adults
- Uncontrolled Terms: Millennials
- Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01588095
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 16-5879
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Jan 27 2016 5:13PM