Women’s Issues in Transportation: Summary of the 4th International Conference, Volume 1: Conference Overview and Plenary Papers (2011)

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15 BReAKOuT SeSSION Attitudes and Preferences Konstadinos Goulias, University of California, Santa Barbara, Presiding emmy Dahl, Linköping University, Sweden Kandice Kreamer Fults, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Konstadinos Goulias presided over the session on attitudes and preferences, which focused on gen-der-related differences in travel and environmental issues such as the value of commuting time and travel effects on the sustainable environment. The discussion explored how men and women view the purpose of daily travel and factors that influence the value of commuting time. CreaTively CommiTTed or burdened wiTh worry? TalKing abouT Travel and environmenTal issues as a way of “doing gender” Emmy Dahl This work is based on a pilot study that is part of a larger research project on gender and sustainable travel. The purpose is to explore the attitudes of women and men on the environmental implications of their personal travel. In April 2009, three focus groups of 14 participants were conducted in Sweden. The first group consisted solely of women, the second group was all male, and the third group was mixed. Some participants were highly dedicated to environmental issues while others were not particularly interested in sustainability. Participants were asked about the type of travel they make in their daily lives and their attitudes about the impact of their travel on the environment. The small sample size limited the findings to an exploration of the gender differences between travel patterns, mobility needs, and traveler attitudes. gender differenCes in The value of CommuTing Time: evidenCe from a household model of subJeCTive life saTisfaCTion in sweden Kandice Kreamer Fults, Gunnar Isacsson, and Anders Karlstrom Aristotle proposed that happiness is found by following most closely that which they have reasoned for them- selves and that only individuals can truly measure hap- piness. This paper presents estimates of the value of commuting time obtained from a model of subjective life satisfaction in the context of a household. The model is estimated using Swedish data containing information on subjective life satisfaction for cohabitating persons. The data set also contains information on individuals’ and partners’ commuting time and socioeconomic character- istics. The model uses a correlated error structure for the household dimension in the data, and it is estimated as an ordered probit model. Separate models are estimated for households with and without young children. The main results suggest that men’s subjective life sat- isfaction is strongly influenced by income, while wom- en’s subjective life satisfaction is less influenced by their own income and strongly influenced by their partner’s income. The results also indicate that the presence of young children in a household has a significant effect on the influences of commuting time for partnered men and women. These findings suggest that the value of commut- ing time based on subjective life satisfaction is higher for women, particularly in households with young children.

16 WOMeN’S ISSueS IN TRANSPORTATION, vOluMe 1 TopiCs for furTher researCh 1. explore power relations produced in positions toward the environmental implications of travel. 2. Investigate constructs of sustainability. 3. Develop constructs of “family life,” “family care,” and differences between spouses. 4. Investigate new models considering nonparametric distribution to estimate the value of commuting time.