Travel Behavior, Gender, and Social Class in the Twin Cities

This study is an examination of gender divisions within local labor markets, focusing on the employment and journey-to-work characteristics of men and women in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area in 1990. First, the report seeks to determine whether labor market segmentation by gender assumes spatial form. There are a number of reasons to expect such patterns, and indeed the few studies to investigate this question have revealed the existence of highly localized labor markets. Second, the report evaluates the geographical variation of gender differences in worktrip length. Again, there are several reasons to expect that the well-documented gender gap in work travel is not constant across the metropolitan settlement fabric. The report examines the nature of this variation, and explores the factors responsible for such patterns.