Revisiting Gender, Race, and Commuting in New York

Transport and mobility justice: Evolving discussions

“…According to this hypothesis, housing market discrimination and limited access to private vehicles hampered the opportunities of African-Americans in inner areas of US cities to access suburbanising employment ( Kain, 1968 ). Research has diversified in many ways since, including but not limited to: scholarship on spatial containment and entrapment of women of different racial/ethnic backgrounds ( Hanson and Pratt, 1995 ; Preston and McLafferty, 2016 ); studies of the uneven distribution of the benefits and costs of transport subsidies, policies and infrastructure development ( Hodge, 1988 ; Hay, 1993 ; Murray and Davis, 2001 ; Foth et al, 2013 ; Pereira et al, 2019 ); and work on how transport disadvantage and social exclusion interact with each other ( Lucas, 2012 ; Lucas et al, 2016 ).…”

Disability, wages, and commuting in New York

“…A lack of accessible transportation is often cited as a barrier to employment for people with disabilities ( Bezyak et al, 2019 ; Lubin and Feeley, 2016 ), but much less is known about the travel patterns of disabled individuals when they are employed and how their commutes relate to the localities where they live and work. In the general population, there is strong evidence to demonstrate that transportation and commuting patterns greatly influence people's job access and wage earnings ( Preston and McLafferty, 2016 ; Kim et al, 2012 ), but these studies do not address disability. The few studies that investigate the commute patterns of people with disabilities include Deka and Lubin (2012) and Brucker and Rollins (2019) , who found commute times to be similar between workers with and without disabilities in New Jersey and across the U.S., respectively.…”

“…Geographic contexts, especially residential contexts, differ in the numbers, types, and locations of job opportunities; the availability of social and employment services; and transportation access and cost – all of which shape workers' commuting decisions and wage earnings. Research on the entire working population shows disparities in commute time, distance, and mode across residential contexts ( Preston and McLafferty, 2016 ; Hu, 2015 ; Lee et al, 2018 ; Sultana and Weber, 2014 ), and it is likely that similar disparities exist for disabled workers. More empirical work on the spatial heterogeneity of wage earnings and commute patterns would enhance our current understandings of how geographic conditions influence the socioeconomic inequities experienced by workers with disabilities.…”

“…Gender and race have important links to commuting, with white women often working closer to home than their male counterparts ( Hanson and Pratt, 1995 ). Women's higher burden of domestic responsibilities and lower wages account in part for these gender disparities ( Preston and McLafferty, 2016 ; Craig and van Tienoven, 2019 ). However, similar gender disparities have not been found for Black, Latinx, and Asian workers ( McLafferty and Preston, 1992 ; Crane, 2007 ; Johnston-Anumonwo, 2014 ; Mauch and Taylor, 1997 ).…”

“…This research provides new empirical insights into the conditions of employment and commuting for urban and suburban residents with disabilities in a major U.S. metropolitan region. We also consider how gender, race, and transportation mode, factors significant in previous research ( Preston and McLafferty, 2016 ; Craig and van Tienoven, 2019 ; Deka and Lubin, 2012 ; Kim et al, 2012 ), intersect with disability to influence wage and commuting trends.…”