The gender travel gap: Exploring intersectional socio-demographic and gender differences in travel in Tel-Aviv through semiparametric mixed model

After conditioning on salient socio-economic attributes such education, employment, income, and household structure, the consensus in the literature is that inherent gender differences persist as an underlying driver of mobility. Females continue to have a lower degree of mobility compared to males when drawing on evidence from studies predominately undertaken in developed countries in the global West. The aim of this study is to contribute to the relatively scarce literature on gender differences in travel in the global East. We perform semiparametric regression analyses to quantify the impact of gender differences in travel in the metropolitan region of Tel-Aviv, Israel using data from 2014-2017. We additionally investigate the intersection of gender and ethnic/religious identification as the data identifies Jewish and Arab populations. In line with the existing literature, we find that females travel less frequently and have shorter travel times and distances compared to males after accounting for 23 different socio-demographic, travel preference, and temporal variables. Moreover, we observe additional mobility penalties for females who are married and have children and for females who identify as Arab. To increase female mobility, we recommend policies to promote higher education which boosts female mobility and policies to reduce the home-based care-taking burden on females such as investment in childcare infrastructure and services. Specifically for Arab females, we additionally recommend policies to improve access to local job opportunities and as well as improving transport accessibility and connectivity in Arab sector zones in Israel.