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Gendered Perspectives on Swedish Transport Policy-Making: An Issue for Gendered Sustainability Too

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Abstract

This chapter presents a two-folded equality reason for a gendered perspective on transport policy and planning. Women’s transportation behaviour has a lower environmental impact than men’s, and women also tend to have stronger preferences for measures improving sustainability in the transport sector. The differences in presented data imply that gendering the transport sector might not only be of transport equality importance but also important for gendering the climate and sustainability goals for the transport sector. The chapter further presents results from investigations regarding whether Swedish transport policy documents on transport issues include any gender perspective and further if representation in decision-making bodies for transport issues are gendered. Based on presented data, the article argues that to more actively involve a gender perspective in transport policy-making thus goes beyond increasing the democratic quality of policy-making by involving women as decision-makers. It might also improve democratic quality of policy-making for overall sustainability as including a gender perspective on measures and decisions for the transport sector would include a stronger stand for a more sustainable and safer transport sector. In this chapter, I argue that the most urgent need for change is to disseminate knowledge (new and existing), to increase the level of competence among policy-makers and planners in the transport sector, to contest prevailing norms and to raise consciousness on gender impacts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trivector Traffic AB, Lund, Sweden

    Lena Smidfelt Rosqvist

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  1. Lena Smidfelt Rosqvist
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Correspondence to Lena Smidfelt Rosqvist .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden

    Christina Lindkvist Scholten

  2. K2 – Swedish Knowledge Centre for Public Transport, Lund, Sweden

    Christina Lindkvist Scholten

  3. Department of Education, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Tanja Joelsson

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Smidfelt Rosqvist, L. (2019). Gendered Perspectives on Swedish Transport Policy-Making: An Issue for Gendered Sustainability Too. In: Scholten, C.L., Joelsson, T. (eds) Integrating Gender into Transport Planning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05042-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05042-9_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05041-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05042-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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