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 household 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 difference. Key Words: work trip, gender, household responsibility, one-worker households, two-worker households.consistent finding about urban travel be-*I would like to thank Susan Hanson, David Miller, the editors, and two anonymous reviewers for heir comments on earlier versions of the paper.

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 income 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-income jobs) and constrained (long commutes to low-income 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.

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The processes of globalization and debt crisis led to dramatic changes in African countries. In the context of a new economic crisis -now on a global scale -it is useful to revisit debates regarding the impact of earlier policies in response to economic crisis on the poor, with a focus on very low-income informal women workers. In this paper, we adopt a gender analysis framework to examine contending perspectives about the differential impacts of globalization, liberalization and structural adjustment programs on African women and men. We comment on two predominant schools of thought that appear to underlie and define the majority of case studies situated in African countries. While one asserts that globalization and liberalization offer entrepreneurial opportunities for women, an opposing view contends that the neoliberal political and economic reforms connected with structural adjustment policies have been devastating for poor women workers. A review of available empirical research on the responses of informal economy women workers to challenges of increased workload, reduced income and curtailed access to social services, cautions against dogmatic adherence to conceptual perspectives that either assume workers in the informal economy to be dynamic entrepreneurs when they cannot be, or condemn only contemporary policies for conditions that are the product of complex historical processes.

An extensive body of research shows significant racial differences in work travel patterns (e.g., see Holzer, 1991, for a review). In the past, much of the studies on racial differences in commuting focused on men and excluded women. However, the increase in women's labor force participation has been accompanied by an increase in studies devoted to gender differences in the journey to work (e.g., Madden, 1981). Early studies concluded that women work closer to home than do men, but many studies generally assumed that working women of all racial groups have shorter work trips than do men (see Sanders, 1990, for a critique). This assumption was unfounded because research exists that documents racial differences in commuting. In light of the documented evidence on both racial and gender differences in access to employment and housing (e.g., Bullard, 1990;Darden, 1990), it is imperative that research studies should differentiate between White and non-White males and females when studying commuting behavior. Studies that investigate racial differences in locational access to employment can inform analysts and policy makers about the impact of past and continuing employment suburbanization on the socioeconomic well-being of African American men and women.Research on racial differences in locational access to employment falls under the umbrella of the spatial mismatch hypothesis. 651 AUTHOR'S NOTE: The author acknowledges the support of Ron Conklin in producing the graphs.