Commuting times – The role of gender,children and part-time work

It has been widely established in the UK and other developed countries that men commute longer than women and that fathers travel furthest to work while mothers travel least. This paper models a wide variety of factors that affect commuting times including gender, presence of children and working hours (part- and full-time work). It finds that of particular importance to the length of commute are the worker’s age, having children, the age of their youngest child, occupation, weekly pay, and mode of transport (with public transport being associated with longer commutes). The region of residence was important for men and women working full-time but not for part timers (except for women in London), while ethnicity and owner occupation were associated with commuting length for full-time men only. The results suggest that while gender, working hours and childcare responsibility are often inter-related, it is useful to disaggregate their effects when modelling or developing policy.