Giving Voice to Women in Public Transport: Understanding “(Im)Mobility of Care” and female travel patterns

Abstract

Regarding the latest developments in transport research and policy, “mobility of care” (MoC) is a concept that has started to be recognised. MoC refers to trips generated by activities of care for home/family. These activities are mostly associated with women and affect their mobility patterns, thus requiring observing mobility from a gender perspective. Using analysis with the gender-perspective of Santiago's mobility survey and our survey, we obtain characteristics of caregivers' mobility patterns. Findings highlight significant inequalities between genders. Specific results show: (1) twice as many women than men make chained trips because of care reasons; (2) minors conduct care-chain trips, which suggests that in the Global South, minors also conduct care-task trips; (3) the presence of children in the household creates a gender gap between women and men that is not present in households without children; (4) immigrant women and single mothers make more stages in a chained trip; (5) 31,2 % of trips are done for care-related reasons, with a significant difference between women and men. Our results show that including gender-perspective in transport planning can help reduce gaps between genders and offer ways of reducing poverty, which makes mobility more equitable and sustainable – environmentally, economically, and socially.