The “mobility of care” in Madrid: Applying innovative criteria for transportation policies

Abstract

This article proposes a methodology for accurately measuring daily travel associated with care tasks: activities performed by adults for children and other dependents, and the maintenance of the home. These activities are statistically performed by women, often as unpaid work. The travels associated with these tasks are not well described in the transportation literature, and less considered by transportation policy agendas. We build the methodological framework for measuring this kind of travel around the innovative concept mobility of care (SÁNCHEZ DE MADARIAGA 2009), which provides an umbrella category for the design of transportation statistics that takes into account gender dimensions in urban transportation. The chapter further provides an empirical study, which applies this methodology to analyse the daily mobility of women and men aged 30-45 years in the metropolitan region of Madrid.