Educational Differences in Cycling: Evidence from German Cities

Abstract

Cycling is an environmentally sustainable social practice that contributes to liveable cities and provides affordable and healthy transport. People with lower education could particularly benefit from cycling, as they tend to fare worse regarding finances and health. However, in bivariate analyses, those with lower education cycle less. This article discusses the social meaning of cycling and investigates whether the education–cycling association holds after accounting for (1) confounders and (2) factors that determine decision leeway between different transport modes. I analyse approximately 80,000 short-distance trips (0.5–7.5 km) reported by 28,000 working-age individuals from cities in Germany using multilevel linear probability regression models. Results support that higher education systematically and substantially increases the propensity to cycle. This education gap implies major untapped potential for environmental sustainability, that current pro-cycling policies in cities disproportionally favour the highly educated and that cycling patterns contribute to inequalities in finances and health.