IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v37y2000i4p731-748.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dissonance in Women's Commuting? The Experience of Exurban Employed Mothers in Israel

Author

Listed:
  • Orna Blumen

    (Department of Human Services, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel, ornab@research.haifa.ac.il)

Abstract

Women's work is mainly divided between unpaid domestic labour and paid jobs, both reflecting their subordinate position. Most women experience a spatial discontinuity between these roles, which are performed in different places, namely home and workplace. Research points to the negative impact of home-work separation on the daily routine of employed women, especially in peripheral suburbs. This study explores the personal experience of commuting among Israeli exurban married mothers who are employed full time in the central city of the nearest metropolis. These characteristics are expected to reflect an especially heavy load on the lives of women, and thus to shape their personal experience. Findings show that women have developed positive attitudes to their commuting; mostly, they use the long trip for a mental shift, contemplation and relaxation. The women interviewed were well aware of the burden of their commuting, but they also acknowledged that their long journey affords them a 'pause' otherwise denied them in their daily routine. Although findings were drawn from a small number of interviewees, they indicate two dissonances: one among the women, who tended to minimise their hardship and focus on the more agreeable aspects of their trips; and one among researchers, who have failed to see that at least some women have the mental ability to shape their commuting into a positive experience. The positive attitudes of the women interviewed are rooted experientially, in sounds and rural landscape, and reflect the influence of territorial socialisation as part of local culture.

Suggested Citation

  • Orna Blumen, 2000. "Dissonance in Women's Commuting? The Experience of Exurban Employed Mothers in Israel," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(4), pages 731-748, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:4:p:731-748
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980050003991
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980050003991
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420980050003991?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Novaco, Raymond W. & Stokols, Daniel & Milanesi, Louis, 1990. "Objective and Subjective Dimensions Of Travel Impedance as Determinants Of Commuting Stress," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt5jq8164z, University of California Transportation Center.
    2. Novaco, Raymond W. & Stokols, Daniel & Milanesi, Louis, 1990. "Objective and Subjective Dimensions Of Travel Impedance as Determinants Of Commuting and Stress," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt10m3x16k, University of California Transportation Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Scheiner, Joachim, 2014. "Gendered key events in the life course: effects on changes in travel mode choice over time," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 47-60.
    2. Hazans, Mihails, 2002. "Social returns to commuting in the Baltic states," ERSA conference papers ersa02p232, European Regional Science Association.
    3. Jain, Juliet & Line, Tilly & Lyons, Glenn, 2011. "A troublesome transport challenge? Working round the school run," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1608-1615.
    4. Natalia Presman & Arie Arnon, 2006. "Commuting patterns in Israel 1991-2004," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2006.04, Bank of Israel.
    5. Jia Tang & Feng Zhen & Jason Cao & Patricia L. Mokhtarian, 2018. "How do passengers use travel time? A case study of Shanghai–Nanjing high speed rail," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 451-477, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Junghwan Kim & Mei-Po Kwan, 2018. "Beyond Commuting: Ignoring Individuals’ Activity-Travel Patterns May Lead to Inaccurate Assessments of Their Exposure to Traffic Congestion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, December.
    2. Arnaud Mertens & Philippe Van Kerm, 2023. "Commuting time and absenteeism: Evidence from a natural experiment," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-08, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    3. Georg Gottholmseder & Klaus Nowotny & Gerald J. Pruckner & Engelbert Theurl, 2009. "Stress perception and commuting," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 559-576, May.
    4. Bart Neuts & Peter Nijkamp & Eveline Van Leeuwen, 2012. "Crowding Externalities from Tourist Use of Urban Space," Tourism Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 649-670, June.
    5. Ma, Liang & Ye, Runing, 2019. "Does daily commuting behavior matter to employee productivity?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 130-141.
    6. Lars Olsson & Tommy Gärling & Dick Ettema & Margareta Friman & Satoshi Fujii, 2013. "Happiness and Satisfaction with Work Commute," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(1), pages 255-263, March.
    7. Bruno Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2014. "Economic Consequences of Mispredicting Utility," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 937-956, August.
    8. Lorenz, Olga & Goerke, Laszlo, 2015. "Commuting and Sickness Absence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113173, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Anindya Ghose & Hyeokkoo Eric Kwon & Dongwon Lee & Wonseok Oh, 2019. "Seizing the Commuting Moment: Contextual Targeting Based on Mobile Transportation Apps," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 154-174, March.
    10. Kim, Sang-O & Palm, Matthew & Han, Soojung & Klein, Nicholas J., 2023. "Facing a time crunch: Time poverty and travel behaviour in Canada," SocArXiv z6tvd, Center for Open Science.
    11. Shoup, Donald C. & Willson, Richard W., 1992. "Commuting, Congestion and Pollution: The Employer-Paid Parking Connection," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt2f0485tp, University of California Transportation Center.
    12. Novaco, Raymond W. & Kliewer, Wendy & Broquet, Alexander, 1991. "Home Environment Consequences of Commute Travel Impedance," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt1d5742g7, University of California Transportation Center.
    13. Kroesen, Maarten, 2022. "Working from home during the corona-crisis is associated with higher subjective well-being for women with long (pre-corona) commutes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-23.
    14. Mokhtarian, Patricia L. & Salomon, Ilan, 1997. "Modeling the Desire to Telecommute: The Importance of Attitudinal Factors in Behavioral Models," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt29z267km, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Nie, Peng & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2018. "Commute time and subjective well-being in urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 188-204.
    16. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal, J. & Molina, Jose Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2018. "The commuting behavior of workers in the United States: Differences between the employed and the self-employed," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 19-29.
    17. Alois Stutzer & Bruno S. Frey, 2008. "Stress that Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 339-366, June.
    18. Milakis, Dimitris & Cervero, Robert & van Wee, Bert & Maat, Kees, 2015. "Do people consider an acceptable travel time? Evidence from Berkeley, CA," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 76-86.
    19. Edoardo Marcucci, 1999. "Road Pricing: Old Beliefs, Present Awareness and Future Research Patterns," Working Papers 1999.4, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    20. Christopher D. Higgins & Matthias N. Sweet & Pavlos S. Kanaroglou, 2018. "All minutes are not equal: travel time and the effects of congestion on commute satisfaction in Canadian cities," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(5), pages 1249-1268, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:4:p:731-748. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.