The Pink Transportation Tax
We talk about gaps a lot here. The wage gap keeps women from being compensated at the same rates as their male counterparts for the same work. The pink tax results refers to increased costs for products marketed toward women – razors and pens are just two examples of the products that cost an average of 7% more when they are pink. Health care costs more for women due to the gender rating which still exists among 90% of best-selling health care plans. And we have a new disparity to consider: the commuting gap. Not only do women, on average, earn less for their work and pay more for good and services, they also tend to pay a greater cost in terms of their commutes to and from work.
A recent study from the Rudin Center at New York University finds that women typically have a shorter commute to work than do men. At the outset, this sounds great. Happiness research typically identifies commuting time as one of the least happy and most stressful times of day. Disaggregating this gap, however, reveals some more nefarious consequences for women. Women think about their commutes differently than do men. While some of that has to do with personal safety, it also involves considerations for caregiving (this often refers to women as primary caregivers of children, but it can also include giving care to aging parents or other dependent adults – all of which still tends to fall to women more often than to men).
The NYU study studied 547 respondents, 52% of women are female and 93% of women hold at least an undergraduate degree. Some key findings included the following:
Women tend to prioritize caregiving responsibilities when they take jobs and consider the commutes to those jobs. A quick poll of my friends with kiddos in daycare or after school care showed that care centers charge exorbitantly for late pickup (e.g., $1 per minute of lateness after the pickup time or $30 after ten minutes of lateness).
75% of women reported experiences of theft and harassment on public transit (compared to 47% of men). Neither stat here is great and, taken together, they suggest that harassment and theft are still substantial problems in some cities’ transit systems. However, 88% of women also say that they don’t report these incidents to authorities for a host of reasons, so they tend to feel alone and unsafe during their commutes.
Lead researcher Sarah Kaufman also notes that women spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on ridesharing apps and taxi services each year, “both for convenience (think about carrying a stroller up and down subway steps) and for personal safety (think also about waiting on that same subway late at night, alone)”.
Women have to think of different realities than do their male colleagues and partners when considering distance to and from work. These realities are exacerbated when other complicating factors such as living on a limited income, working second and third shifts, using public transportation exclusively, multiple caregiving responsibilities, or workplace harassment enter the picture. The highest paying jobs require a great deal of flexible time, so distance and caregiving may prevent women from taking those jobs which may limit their employment opportunities over the course of a lifetime. Additionally, women’s concerns about their physical safety start in childhood as “three in four girls ages 14-19 (76%) feel unsafe at least once in a while.” What can be done? We’ve talked about a number of solutions elsewhere on this blog before, but we’ll recap some here:
Equal pay for equal work. This is – or should be – a no brainer. If women have the flexibility afforded them by equal wages, they have the opportunity to make better choices for themselves and their families.
Employer subsidies for childcare (for all parents) or travel. When employers offer some compensation for the cost of healthcare, women have more flexibility. For non-parenting women, employers might subsidize the cost of a late-night commute or offer a monthly budget for ride-sharing services after working hours.
If you have had experiences of commuting that have influenced your work-life balance, or have other suggestions for how to mitigate the commuting gap, let us know in the comments!