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The backward-bending commute times of married women with household responsibility

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine theoretically and empirically whether the commute times of married women follow a backward-bending pattern with respect to wage rates. The existing literature has shown that married women tend to choose short commutes because of their relatively low wages combined with comparatively heavy household responsibilities. However, a work–leisure model, which includes the simultaneous decision wives take regarding commute times and wage rates, suggests that married women employed in highly paid positions also undertake short commutes, while married women with wage rates in the middle range choose long commutes. These results suggest that the commute times of married women display a backward-bending pattern. Applying an instrumental variable strategy that accounts for the endogeneity of wage rates, the empirical results for employed married women in Japan appear to support this finding. Moreover, one of our results suggests that highly paid married women can still secure greater leisure time with short commutes, despite retaining a heavy load of domestic responsibilities.

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Notes

  1. Using the Harmonised European Time Use Survey (HETUS, online database Version 2.0.), we can obtain evidence on the contribution rate of married men to total housework hours in dual-income households for persons aged 20–74 years with both spouses working full time. This clearly suggests that married men in European countries have relatively fewer household responsibilities: 38.1 % in Belgium, 31.8 % in Bulgaria, 35.4 % in Estonia, 38.3 % in Finland, 37.4 % in France, 42.5 % in Germany, 27.4 % in Italy, 32.3 % in Latvia, 30.8 % in Lithuania, 39.2 % in Norway, 36.5 % in Poland, 35.0 % in Slovenia, 33.6 % in Spain, 41.9 % in Sweden, and 40.1 % in the United Kingdom. Married men in Japan bear even less of the share of domestic responsibilities with the 2006 Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA, Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) informing us that the contribution rate of married men to total housework hours in dual-income households for persons aged 15 years or older is only 10.4 %.

  2. Women may also lose opportunities to participate in activities because of household responsibilities. We, however, do not consider this issue.

  3. Married women may also alter the days on which they work during the week. We do not consider this possibility here, however, because we focus on how married women divide their time use during the working day.

  4. Again using the HETUS, we estimate that the commute times (in minutes, for persons aged 20–74 years in full- or part-time work) for married women (men) are 25(37) in Belgium, 38(46) in Bulgaria, 35(38) in Estonia, 23(28) in Finland, 28(40) in France, 23(39) in Germany, 34(47) in Italy, 38(50) in Latvia, 38(44) in Lithuania, 24(34) in Norway, 34(43) in Poland, 28(32) in Slovenia, 38(45) in Spain, 23(28) in Sweden, and 25(41) in the United Kingdom. Japan displays similar features. According to the STULA, the commute times in Japan (in dual-income households for persons aged 15 years or older) are 27 minutes for women and 47 minutes for men.

  5. The reason for long-distance commuting is not solely wage-related. Married women tend to choose long commutes when they can develop coping strategies for managing their mobile life; they can get support from their spouse; they want to maintain local ties in suburbs, especially for their children (Hofmeister 2005; Sandow 2011).

  6. Relationships between the commuting decisions of spouses in dual-income households and their housing preferences were studied, for example, by Singell and Lillydahl (1986) and Plaut (2006).

  7. Derivations of Eqs. (4) and (5) are given in electronic supplementary material.

  8. As Boling (1998) noted, the labour force participation rate of Japanese women in the labour market is characterized by an M-shaped curve, indicating high levels of participation immediately after completing school, a pronounced dip for the 30–40-year old cohort because of child-care responsibilities, and high levels of participation again for the 40–54-year old age group. When the last group return to the labour market, they are usually employed as part-time workers.

  9. Kitamura (2010) collected 800 observations on full-time working dual-income households in the Tokyo Metropolitan area in Japan. Her survey results suggested that working mothers are more likely to reduce labour and commute times to secure homework time. This becomes more noticeable when the husband’s labour time is 10 hours a day or more.

  10. The estimation results for the first stage, namely, wage rates and its square, are given in electronic supplementary material. All instruments indeed exert a significantly positive impact on wage rates.

  11. We divide leisure time into the original categories and estimate these time equations. The estimation results indicate that the increase in wage rates decreases the time spent on hobbies, recreation, social life (v), and personal care (vi), and increases the time spent on study (iii). All of the coefficients for Wage squared are statistically insignificant.

  12. The result using OLS shows that commute time peaks at approximately 4,733. 91 yen, notwithstanding that 99.54 % of married women earn less than this. Therefore, commute time tends to become an increasing function within a reasonable range.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the helpful comments of three anonymous reviewers, Yoko Morita, Ryo Nakajima, as well as participants at numerous seminars and conferences on an earlier version of the paper. We are also grateful to the Institute for Research on Household Economics for access to microdata of the JPSC. Part of this paper was written while Shinichiro Iwata was visiting University of Tokyo and University of Glasgow, and while Keiko Tamada was visiting Stanford University. We gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of these institutions. This research was supported by KAKENHI 19330062 and 19730170.

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  1. Faculty of Economics, University of Toyama, 3190 Gofuku, Toyama, 930-8555, Japan

    Shinichiro Iwata

  2. Faculty of Economics, Fukuoka University, Nanakuma 8-19-1, Johnan-ku, Fukuoka, 814-0180, Japan

    Keiko Tamada

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  1. Shinichiro Iwata
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  2. Keiko Tamada
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Correspondence to Shinichiro Iwata.

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Iwata, S., Tamada, K. The backward-bending commute times of married women with household responsibility. Transportation 41, 251–278 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-013-9458-5

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