Spatial Mismatch and Employment in a Decade of Restructuring∗

Spatial barriers to employment limit women's job opportunities, but their effects differ among racial/ethnic minority groups. This study evaluates the degree of spatial mismatch for minority women and men by comparing the commuting times of African American, Latino, and white workers in the New York metropolitan region. Using Public Use Microdata for 1980 and 1990, we perform a partial decomposition analysis to assess the role of spatial mismatch in lengthening commuting times for minority workers. The results show that African American men and women living in the center of the region have poorer spatial access to employment than their white counterparts. In the suburbs, African American women and Latinas suffer no spatial mismatch; rather, their longer commuting times reflect greater reliance on mass transit. Comparison with 1980 findings reveals little change in spatial mismatch over time despite significant economic and social restructuring in the 1980s. Spatial barriers still limit employment prospects for the majority of minority women living at the core of the region.     

Spatial Mismatch and Employment in a Decade of Restructuring*

Spatial barriers to employment limit women's job opportunities, but their effects differ among racial/ethnic minority groups. This study evaluates the degree of spatial mismatch for minority women and men by comparing the commuting times of African American, Latino, and white workers in the New York metropolitan region. Using Public Use Microdata for 1980 and 1990, we perform a partial decomposition analysis to assess the role of spatial mismatch in lengthening commuting times for minority workers. The results show that African American men and women living in the center of the region have poorer spatial access to employment than their white counterparts. In the suburbs, African American women and Latinas suffer no spatial mismatch; rather, their longer commuting times reflect greater reliance on mass transit. Comparison with 1980 findings reveals little change in spatial mismatch over time despite significant economic and social restructuring in the 1980s. Spatial barriers still limit employment prospects for the majority of minority women living at the core of the region.     

THE IMPACT OF FAMILY STATUS ON BLACK,WHITE, AND HISPANIC WOMEN'S COMMUTING

The relationship between women's domestic labor and employment in the paid labor force is central to current debates about gender inequities in occupations and incomes. Recent studies of gender differences in commuting argue that women reduce the journey to work to accommodate the demands of family responsibilities. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. Equal numbers of studies have reported significant andinsignificant relationships between average commuting times and various measures of domestic responsibilities. Few of these studies have examined the implications of parenthood and, particularly, single parenthood, for the commuting patterns of women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Women who are single parents may work closer to home than other women because of their substantial domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, as sole wage earners, single parents may travel long times to obtain better paid employment. Using information about a sample of women in the New York Consolidated Metropolitan Area, we compared the average commuting times of black, Hispanic, and white women from single and two-parent households. The presence and ages of children significantly reduced all women's commuting times, although the effects of parenthood were muted for minority women. Single mothers commuted longer than married mothers, but the size of the disparity depended upon a woman's racial/ethnic background and place of residence. All single mothers commuted shorter times in the suburbs than at the center, but the differences were greatest for minority women living in the suburbs.     

Who has long commutes to low-wage jobs? Gender,race, and access to work in the New York region

Geographies of home and work have changed as public investment has favored central and distant suburban locations and as income inequality has increased. These changes result in shifting geographies of advantage that (dis)benefit gender and racial/ethnic groups unevenly. We examine commuting differentials by gender and race/ethnicity based on combinations of wages and commute times using data for the New York region.We find that Black, Asian, and Hispanic women and men are concentrated in jobs that have long commutes and low-wages, and Black and Hispanic workers’ concentrations increased from 2000–2010.Although Asian men and women remain overrepresented in that category, their share decreased in the 2000's.The urban core has become a region of heightened advantage, as White men, and an increasing share of White women, commute short times to well-paid jobs. Disadvantage has expanded for Black and Latina women whose long commutes are not compensated by well-paid employment.     

Job Access and Commute Penalties: Balancing Work and Residence in Los Angeles

There is an ongoing debate about whether minorities and women pay a commute penalty—that is, do these groups commute farther for lower wages than White males? Research based on commuting time has suggested that minority women bear the multiple jeopardy of race and gender in their journey-to-work behavior. The present study re-examines those findings. We show that minority women who commute longer distances have higher earnings. There is a positive or in some cases neutral relationship between distance and earnings. This suggests that we treat the notion of a commute penalty with some caution. However, women still do not earn as much as men and they are relatively if not absolutely disadvantaged in the commuting process. As expected, for women as for men, skill is a major factor in earnings gains, and relying on public transportation negatively affects earnings. In the past decade it has been fashionable to focus on the negative impacts of commuting on women, but the evidence from this study suggests that the shorter commutes by women may be an expression of the way in which families balance work and residence.     

BEYOND POSTMODERNISM

By simultaneously controlling for the spatial and social characteristics of neighborhoods, this study sheds new empirical light on the relationship between ethnic-enclave residence and ethnic-niche employment. Considering women's commuting constraints and their theoretically more local social networks, this study explores whether residential segregation may be a more important determinant of labor-market segregation for immigrant women than for men. The study finds that residential segregation plays an important role in sustaining labor-market segregation among immigrants, and that gender emerges as a salient mediating factor. While living in an ethnic enclave tends to be associated with ethnic-niche employment for both men and women, women who live in enclave neighborhoods have a higher rate of ethnic-niche employment than men. However, greater geographic accessibility to niche jobs is associated with niche employment for both immigrant men and women in general, and place-based context seems as important to men as women.     

Travel From Home: An Economic Geography of Commuting Distances in Montreal

The question of how home and workplace are linked through commuting is at the heart of much recent work on metropolitan areas. However, the emphasis tends to be either on spatial-economic models or on the impact of empirically measured individual, household, neighborhood, and transport mode characteristics; relatively little work has focused on job characteristics and place of employment as they relate to travel to work. In this article, I investigate whether people travel different distances to access different types of job location, with particular attention to the different distances traveled by men and women. My points of reference are the major employment centers (poles) in the Montreal region. After controlling for a wide range of explanations that may account for different travel distances, I conclude that differences in commuting length between different places of work are, by and large, independent of possible explanatory factors such as residential location, economic sector, occupation, income, and participation in household earnings—some places of work generate longer commutes than others. Men and women behave differently in relation to these places: women will travel farther to access jobs in centers whereas men will not; and despite their shorter average overall commutes, women travel farther than men to reach jobs in the CBD. This suggests, at the metropolitan scale, that each job location may have its own local culture or "milieu," and that men and women react differently to them.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMMUTING DISTANCE,RESIDENCE, AND EMPLOYMENT LOCATION: METROPOLITAN HAIFA 1972 AND 1983*

This paper highlights three major aspects of gender differences in employment in Haifa, Israel (1972 and 1983): commuting distance, place of residence, and employment location. In 1972 working womenaposs residences were more central-city-oriented, whereas in 1983 they were more suburbanized. Commuting distances increased between 1972 and 1983 for both sexes, but more for men than for women. This shorter “female'’distance is related to the location of employment and its occupational segregation. The lower commuting values in Haifa compared to other places relate to the size, housing patterns, and structure of the study area, and to its levels of suburbanization and automobile ownership.     

Race,Gender, and Constrained Work Trips in Buffalo,NY, 1990

This study investigates whether women's short commutes should be interpreted as constrained or convenient work trips by examining how race, gender, travel mode, occupation, residential location, workplace location, and Inc.ome affect commuting time. The analysis is restricted to a sample of European American and African American male and female workers residing in Buffalo, New York, and the surrounding county using data drawn from the Public Use Microdata Samples of the 1990 U.S. census. Given the pervasive gender wage gap, women unsurprisingly have more compromised (short commutes to low-Inc.ome jobs) work trips than do men. Multivariate analysis reveals that among those who reverse commute to suburban locations, African American women have the longest work trips.     

Race,Gender, and Constrained Work Trips in Buffalo,NY, 1990

This study investigates whether women's short commutes should be interpreted as constrained or convenient work trips by examining how race, gender, travel mode, occupation, residential location, workplace location, and Inc.ome affect commuting time. The analysis is restricted to a sample of European American and African American male and female workers residing in Buffalo, New York, and the surrounding county using data drawn from the Public Use Microdata Samples of the 1990 U.S. census. Given the pervasive gender wage gap, women unsurprisingly have more compromised (short commutes to low-Inc.ome jobs) work trips than do men. Multivariate analysis reveals that among those who reverse commute to suburban locations, African American women have the longest work trips.     

The Influence of Household Type on Gender Differences in Work Trip Distance*

Conflicting evidence exists in the literature on commuting about whether or not the greater household responsibilities of women lead to their widely observed shorter work trips compared to men. In light of changes in American houehold structures, this study reexamines the household responsibility hypothesis by focusing on household type (defined in terms of number of workers present in the home). Male and female work-trip distances are compared for Baltimore workers in single-worker households and for those in two-worker households. The findings support the household responsibility hypothesis by showing a larger and more significant sex disparity among respondents in two-worker households than among those in single-worker households even after controlling for other factors, including presence of children. These results, and the finding that married women have shorter work trips than married men, are in line with the general conclusions of some previous studies that the unequal division of labor within the household is partly responsible for the gender differnce.     

Modeling Commuting Patterns in Chicago in a GIS Environment: A Job Accessibility Perspective

Using the newly released Census for Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) 1990, this research utilizes GIS tools to explain intraurban variations of commuting in Chicago at the Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) level. While commute times are directly available from the CTPP, commute distances are derived from the shortest time distances through real-world road networks. GIS surface modeling is used to help identify the major employment center (CBD) and other subcenters. The explanations of commute times and distances are attempted by various measures of job accessibility: the jobs-housing balance ratio defined in a floating catchment area, distances from the CBD and subcenters, and a gravity-based index that takes the effects of all jobs into account. These measurements better explain how far people commute than how much time they spend on commuting. The best model explains over 50% of the variation of commuting among 7,835 TAZs. This is a significant improvement over existing literature, which at best explained less than 30 percent.     

Modeling Commuting Patterns in Chicago in a GIS Environment: A Job Accessibility Perspective

Using the newly released Census for Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) 1990, this research utilizes GIS tools to explain intraurban variations of commuting in Chicago at the Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) level. While commute times are directly available from the CTPP, commute distances are derived from the shortest time distances through real‐world road networks. GIS surface modeling is used to help identify the major employment center (CBD) and other subcenters. The explanations of commute times and distances are attempted by various measures of job accessibility: the jobs‐housing balance ratio defined in a floating catchment area, distances from the CBD and subcenters, and a gravity‐based index that takes the effects of all jobs into account. These measurements better explain how far people commute than how much time they spend on commuting. The best model explains over 50% of the variation of commuting among 7,835 TAZs. This is a significant improvement over existing literature, which at best explained less than 30 percent.     

THE COMMUTING OF EXURBAN HOME BUYERS

The commuting times of exurbanites are explored using data from a survey of recent home purchasers in the Portland, Oregon region. Despite the suburbanization of jobs, most exurbanites spend more time commuting than their suburban counterparts. Household dynamics strongly influence exurban travel times with working spouses shortening the commutes of primary earners and children shortening the trips of secondary earners. In exchange for longer trips to work, exurban households obtain more space, a rural environment, lower housing prices, and/or better places for raising their children. The diversity of exurban households is captured in four exurban household types—Economy-Minded, Family-Oriented, Affluent, and Long-Distance Commuters—each of which has different commuting and socioeconomic characteristics.     

Elderly co-residence and the household responsibilities hypothesis: evidence from Nanjing,China

In this paper, we analyze the effects of co-residence with elderly parents on gender differences in travel. The Household Responsibility Hypothesis (HRH) explains differences in the role of women regarding household responsibilities. However, research so far has studied “Western” household types while excluding households with co-residing elderly parents. Furthermore, research has paid exclusive attention to gender differences in commuting trips, and has neglected the effects of built environment characteristics. In view of these shortcomings, we pose the following research questions: what are the determinants of gendered differences in travel behavior, and specifically, what are the effects of elderly co-residence in households and land use on gender differences in trip frequency and travel distance? In addition to the HRH, we introduce the Elderly Co-residence Hypothesis, which suggests that co-residing elderly parents take over household responsibilities from adult women, resulting in diminishing gender differences in working-age travel patterns. We present the results of empirical research in Nanjing, China, that support this hypothesis.     

北京市外来人口集聚型城中村流动人口职住分离研究

居住和就业是居民日常生活的主要内容,随着中国城市化进程加快,城市中低收入群体的职住分离现象正得到越来越多的关注。本文采用人口集聚指数、GIS空间分析及Logit回归分析等方法,利用北京市“六普”及实地调研数据,来获取外来人口集聚型城中村流动人口通勤及职住特征,并对影响因素进行分析。结果表明：①北京流动人口集中于城市拓展区,呈“环状圈层”分布特征。②近郊城中村流动人口通勤距离普遍较长,职住分离较明显,相应通勤时间也较长;远郊城中村流动人口通勤距离较短,以就地工作为主,由于远离城市核心区,公共服务设施的可达性较差。③家庭就业人数、未成年及老人数、住京时长、收入、受教育程度、行业、交通工具选择等对其通勤距离具有显著影响。上述结论可为研究城市弱势群体工作居住空间结构、制定城市规划等提供参考。     

邻里环境感知与个体健康对通勤模式选择的影响研究——以南京市为例

通勤是大部分城市就业者日常工作所必须面对的问题。相比宏观层面的城市建成环境,微观层面的邻里环境感知及个体健康与通勤模式选择的联系更为密切。以南京市主城区8个社区为案例地,利用结构方程模型探究邻里环境感知与个体健康对城市就业者通勤模式选择的影响。首先借助问卷调查数据,将通勤模式分为积极通勤、公共交通通勤、电动车/摩托车通勤以及小汽车通勤四类;其次使用因子分析法确定邻里环境感知的潜变量,并将个体健康分为身体健康、心理健康与健康行为3个潜变量;最后构建结构方程模型的理论框架并进行实证分析。研究发现：① 邻里环境感知变量中服务设施感知、环境品质感知对通勤模式选择存在显著的直接效应,交通安全感知对通勤模式选择存在显著的间接效应。② 个体健康变量中,心理健康与健康行为对通勤模式选择存在显著的直接效应。③ 通勤距离与社会经济属性对通勤模式选择存在显著的直接效应,同时社会经济属性对通勤模式选择亦存在显著的间接效应。基于研究结果,提出有效提升就业者对于社区环境的主观感受,进而提高就业者参与健康行为的意愿与就业者的健康水平,从而引导其选择更加健康和绿色的通勤模式。     

基于结构方程模型的南京市就业者通勤行为特征对健康的影响研究

通勤是城市就业者日常工作所必须面对的问题,长距离、长时间通勤以及机动化通勤方式带来的健康问题引起了国内外学者们的广泛关注。论文基于南京市居民身体活动及健康状况问卷调查数据,构建结构方程模型分析就业者通勤距离、通勤时间及通勤模式三者的关系及其对心理健康、身体健康以及健康行为的影响。研究发现：① 通勤距离对机动车通勤模式与通勤时间存在显著的正向直接效应,同时通勤距离对通勤时间存在显著的正向间接效应。② 在心理健康影响方面,通勤距离、通勤时间及机动车通勤模式对邻里关系有显著的负向直接效应,同时通勤距离与通勤模式对邻里关系还存在显著的负向间接效应;在身体健康影响方面,通勤距离降低了就业者超重或肥胖的发生概率,但增加了就业者选择机动车通勤模式的可能性,从而间接增加了就业者患慢性疾病的风险;在健康行为影响方面,通勤距离、通勤时间与睡眠时间显著负相关,机动车通勤模式对睡眠时间产生负向间接影响,与是否做家务显著负相关,与是否散步呈现显著的正相关。③ 通勤行为特征对健康的影响因就业者社会经济属性不同而存在差异,女性、年龄较大以及收入较低的就业者通勤行为特征对健康的影响更为显著。基于研究结果,提出优化城市职住空间、减少通勤时耗,降低小汽车依赖、促进积极通勤来提高就业者身体活动量,并为特殊群体的通勤创造更加有利的条件,进而提升其健康水平。     

大城市郊区居民通勤模式对健康的影响研究——以北京天通苑为例

中国大城市的郊区化加剧了居民的职住分离与长距离通勤,进而影响其健康状况。本文以北京典型近郊巨型居住区天通苑为案例,研究城市郊区居民通勤模式对健康的影响。天通苑全职就业者通勤空间总体上呈现以天通苑为中心不均匀的放射状格局;根据通勤距离、时间与方式,将天通苑全职就业者的通勤模式划分为短距离-积极-公交通勤、中长距离-公交-小汽车通勤、超长距离-公交-小汽车通勤3种模式。本文借助二项Logistic回归模型,在控制其他社会经济属性的前提下验证不同通勤模式对生理健康和心理健康2个维度6个指标的影响。研究发现,整体上通勤模式对睡眠质量差、经常请病假、疲惫不堪、压力大等健康风险的影响均呈现出倒“U”形的趋势,表明适度通勤可能有利于健康,而过长通勤却不利于健康,尤其是超长距离-公交-小汽车通勤模式显著地增加了睡眠质量差、经常请病假、压力大等的健康风险。最后,本文指出改善大城市郊区职住关系不仅意味着城市运行效率的提升,更意味着居民健康状况及生活质量的提升。     

建成环境对居民通勤方式选择的影响——以武汉市城中村为例

城中村作为带着农民特色和阶级混杂重塑的空间,为弱势劳动群体融入城市化体系、实现反资本而不反市场的城镇化进程提供了保障。探讨建成环境对居民通勤方式选择的影响机制,开展城中村建成环境改造,对于解决弱势群体通勤和就业困难意义重大。论文基于武汉市2018年LBS(Location Based Services)数据,以公共交通通勤方式选择作为二元分类因变量,采用梯度提升决策树(gradient boosting decision tree,GBDT)分析建成环境与城中村居民通勤方式选择的非线性关系与阈值效应,结果显示：普遍长距离通勤的城中村居民对公共交通系统依赖性强,建成环境的非线性影响和阈值效应明显,弥补了传统线性模型在可解释性上的不足;其中公交站可达性预测贡献度最大(19.89%),阈值分别在300 m和1000 m左右,在城中村改造时应尽量满足直线距离300 m公交站点可达,保证1000 m内存在公交线路,其余变量也有相似的可解释性。研究得到的建成环境影响的优先层次和最有效的空间属性范围将为提升城中村居民就业和通勤公平,实现区域包容、协调的城镇化提供参考。