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Commuting Time Patterns of Dual-Earner Couples in Korea

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to put light on the gendered pattern of commuting time of dual-earner couples in Korea by looking into the motivators behind a wife's choice of a longer commute than her husband. In doing so, I estimated commuting hours of 1,266 married dual-income couples with a child from a total of 2,103 time diaries written by them on work days. Time diaries were extracted from the 2014 Korean Time Use Survey data. Analytic results revealed the following. First, the gendered pattern of commuting time was observed with a wife spending 26 min less than her husband daily, and her commuting time was 31 min less than her husband when the couple had a dependent child. Second, the presence of an older child, a wife’s egalitarian gender role attitude, her longer weekly work hours, and her greater financial contribution to the household increased the likelihood of the couple belonging to the wife longer and husband shorter commute time pattern, serving as motivators for women in dual-earner households to take on a longer commute than men. Findings from this study were discussed from the perspective of household responsibility hypothesis, based on which I tried to provide implications for researchers and policy makers.

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Funding

This work was supported by the research grant of the Kongju National University in 2019.

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  1. Department of Technology and Home Economics Education, Kongju National University, Chungcheongnam-do, Gongju-si, Korea

    Soyoung Kim

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  1. Soyoung Kim
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Correspondence to Soyoung Kim.

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Available from MicroData Integrated Service (MDIS) of Statistics Korea (MDIS—Microdata Integrated Service (kostat.go.kr)).

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Kim, S. Commuting Time Patterns of Dual-Earner Couples in Korea. Soc Indic Res 161, 105–123 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02797-2

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