Gender, Race, and Travel Behavior: Analysis of Household-Serving Travel and Commuting in San Francisco Bay Area

Detailed trip diary data from a 1990 survey of San Francisco Bay Area residents were used to examine the effects of race/ethnicity on the differences in commuting and household-serving travel among men and women. With respect to travel behavioral differences between men and women, the findings suggest that women do more child chauffeuring and make more household-serving trips than men. This analysis further reveals that these gender differences in commuting behavior extend to household-serving travel and can vary significantly by race/ethnicity in addition to income and household structure. It was found, for example, that commute time differences are highest among whites (4.5 min) and lowest among Hispanics (1.8 min), whereas observed gender differences in average travel time for all trips do not vary much by race or ethnicity. Furthermore, the gender variation in child-serving trips was lowest among Asians and Pacific Islanders (women are 60 percent more likely to make such trips) and highest among whites (women are 223 percent more likely to make such trips). Finally, and in contrast to child-serving travel, women make about 75 percent more grocery trips than men, regardless of race/ethnicity. The analysis suggests, however, that much, although not all, of the racial/ethnic variation in the travel behavior of men and women is probably explained by factors—such as income, employment status, metropolitan location, and automobile availability—that tend to vary systematically by race ethnicity. In general, it was found that gender is a far more robust predictor of child-serving and grocery shopping trips than either race or ethnicity.