Blog Post

AEIdeas

Note: First table and text below (Item #2) have been updated to clarify how “Equal Commute Day” is calculated.



The OECD Family Database (available here) has some fascinating statistics on average commute times by gender, and a summary of some of those data are displayed in the two tables above (click to enlarge). I was first made aware of these OECD commute times data from a blog post by Jim Rose (“The reverse gender gap in commuting times across the OECD”) where Jim suggests that “Commuting times need to be incorporated into calculations of the gender wage gap because they represent a serious fixed cost of working that is higher for men than for women.” Good point.

The graph that Jim displays on his blog is based on data from this OECD Excel file that contains the average commute times (minutes per day) for all adult men and women, including “self-employed who work at home and working age survey-respondents who do not participate in the labor market.” The OECD goes on to say that “Obviously, estimates on average commuting times for all respondents are lower than when such estimates are based on responses by workers only.”

The top table above displays average commute times for 17 OECD countries from this OECD source (see Table LMF2.6.A) that considers only “paid workers.” Some observations:

1. For all 17 OECD countries in the top table, men spend more time on average commuting to and from work each day, and the “gender commute time gap” ranges from as little as one extra minute of commuting time each day in Norway to as high as 18 minutes each day in the U.S. Interestingly, the difference in average commute times in the US by gender – 61 minutes for women vs. 79 minutes for men – represents a 23% “gender commute time gap” in favor of women that is exactly equal to the 23% “gender pay gap” that we hear about from President Obama:

Today, the average full-time working woman earns just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns…in 2014, that’s an embarrassment. It is wrong.

Let me re-phrase Obama’s statement to highlight the “gender commute time gap”:

Today, the average full-time working woman commutes only 77 minutes for every 100 minutes a man commutes to work…in 2014, that’s an embarrassment. It is wrong.

2. Following my introduction in 2010 of the “Equal Occupational Fatality Day” to highlight the “gender occupational fatality gap” in favor of women, let me now introduce the “Equal Commute Day” to highlight the significant “gender commute time gap” in favor of women. As displayed in the top table above, “Equal Commute Day” in the U.S. will fall on April 14* (see update below) this year and represents how far into the current year women will be able to commute to work before they have spent as much time commuting to work as men did in 2015. Interestingly, that will be a few days after the next “Equal Pay Day” on April 12. “Equal Commute Days” for other OECD countries are also displayed in the top table above.

[*Update: To calculate the “Equal Commute Day” for the US, I took the daily “gender commute gap” of 18 minutes and multiplied that by 250 days (5 work days per week X 50 weeks of work per year), to get 4,500 (18 X 250) extra commute minutes per year for men. Then I divided 4,500 extra minutes per year by the average daily commute time for women (61 minutes) to determine the number of extra days women would have to commute this year to equal the amount of time men spent commuting to work last year: 4,500 / 18 = 73.8 days.]

The bottom chart above displays some really interesting data on the average amount of time spent commuting by paid workers by gender and by the presence (and ages) of children in the household (also from Table LMF2.6.A). Note that:

3. Having children is actually associated with a slight increase in commuting times on average for men in the 16 OECD countries in the bottom table (U.S. data weren’t available for this part of the OECD study). In the UK, the average commute time increases by 2 minutes per day for men with young children (under 7 years old) and by 6 minutes per day for men with school aged children (7 to 17 years old).

4. In contrast to men with children, the average commute times in the OECD countries for women with children does change significantly – there is an average reduction of 4.6 minutes commuting time per day (1,150 minutes per year, or more than 19 hours) for women with young children (from 55.6 minutes to 51 minutes) and an average reduction of 3.9 minutes per day (975 minutes per year, or 16.25 hours) for women with school aged children (from 55.6 to 51.7 minutes).

5. In summary, the average “gender commute time gaps” for paid workers are as follows: a) 10.2% less commuting time per day for women vs. men in households without children (55.6 minutes for women vs. 61.9 minutes for men), b) 18% less commuting time per day for women vs. men in households with young children (51 vs. 62.1 minutes) and c) 17% less commuting time per day for women vs. men in households with children between 7 and 17 years of age.

Bottom Line: Behind the drive for closing the “gender pay gap” – presumably to zero – is often the mistaken assumption that men and women are, or should be, completely interchangeable in their roles in the labor market and in the family. Those assumptions defy innate biological differences and the forces of Mother Nature. It’s an empirically supported fact that men have a much greater tolerance for (and attraction to) risk than women. For example, 91% of motorcycle deaths in 2013 were male, 92% of workplace fatalities in 2014 were men, 93.4% of the current federal prison population is male, and almost 90% of climbers attempting to reach the peak of Mount Everest between 1990 and 2005 were men. That higher male tolerance for risk helps explain some of the gender differences in pay – dangerous, higher risk jobs that are more physically demanding in harsh outdoor work conditions pay more on average than safer, lower risk jobs that are less physically demanding and are in pleasant, air-conditioned indoor offices. It’s also a biological reality that men can’t get pregnant and can’t breast feed, which means that men and women will always play different family roles in childbirth and breastfeeding, and other nurturing child care responsibilities.

We learn about other gender differences for workplace preferences and for family roles from the OECD “gender commute time gaps.” In 17 OECD countries, and especially in the U.S., men are disproportionately more tolerant of longer commute times than women, who on average prefer to work closer to home at job locations with a shorter commute. To the extent that longer commute times are associated with a greater selection of higher-paying jobs, longer average commute times for men would be another factor that would explain some of the aggregate gender differences in pay favoring men. Further, while having children has no effect on men’s average commute times (and in fact increases their commute times slightly), having children does seems to affect women’s preferences for even shorter commute times compared to when they were childless. This might suggest that women want more flexibility and shorter commute times after they have children so that they can more effectively provide family and child care services. In conclusion, the OECD data suggest that women on average place a premium on shorter commute times to work, and therefore may be willing to voluntarily accept fewer job options and lower pay for being able to work close to home, especially after they have children.

Q: To close the “gender pay gap” women might have to be willing to spend a lot more time commuting to higher paying jobs and close the 23% “gender commute time gap,” which is currently 4,500 minutes annually in the U.S., or 75 hours per year and more than nine 8-hour work days per year in additional commute time for men. Would that increased commute time really be worth it to most women? Based on their current “revealed preferences” for shorter commute times than men according to the OECD survey, I think the answer is obviously “No.”