Gender, mobility and travel behavior in Pakistan: Analysis of 2007 Time Use Survey

Pakistan’s national economic growth framework views connectivity between people and settlements as an engine of economic development. However, a little is known about the patterns of mobility across socioeconomic segments of the country. The study aims to explore gender differences in travel behavior across urban and rural areas that remain unexplored due to the non-availability of suitable data. The paper employs national dataset of 2007 Time Use Survey (TUS) carried out to measure gendered time use in paid and unpaid work activities. In TUS, a national sample of 37830 respondents living in 19380 households, ageing 11 and above, was selected for household and time diary surveys during the whole year 2007. Time use diary recorded various activities carried out by respondents in forty eight 30-minute long episodes of the past day, their context locations and simultaneity, according to 125 activity codes based on UN designed International Classification of Activities for Time Use Surveys. Preprocessed TUS, that is publically available from Pakistan Strategy Support Program, was analyzed using longitudinal data analysis techniques. According to the results, large gender differences are found in travel behavior related to trip rate, travel mode, duration and purpose of travel. Female are more likely to be immobile as 55 percent female respondents did not report any trip in the diary day as compared to just 4 percent male respondents. Women make lesser daily trips (2.8) than men (5.4) and the greatest difference exist for leisure and sociocultural trips. Women are more automobile dependent as their share of automobile trips (13 %) is greater than men’s share (10 %). Period of adulthood and marriage seems to restrict female mobility and leisure travel strongly. Female travel behavior is largely shaped by sociocultural, economical and built environment of the country. The findings points out the need for gender sensitive transport and land use policies in the country as women are more likely to be immobile or travel less due to their concerns related to safety, security and quality of transportation. Potential sources of bias and research directions are pointed out at the end.