Women rely more heavily on public transport than men

©Sung Kuk Kim via 123RF

There was a range of possible economic, social and cultural reasons for the gender differences in travel patterns, and because access to transport enabled participation in the labour markets, more in-depth inquiries were needed, statistician-general Pali Lehohla said at the release of Statistics SA's 2013 Gender Patterns in Transport survey.

Across all income brackets, women are more likely to rely on public transport for travel and also more likely to use more than one mode of travel to get to work, Stats SA said.

These differences are even larger in higher income categories.

Within the R5,233-R9,500 and the R9,500-R21,002 income brackets, the difference in use of public transport was 9.2 and 8.5 percentage points respectively.

Six percent of men and 7 percent of women used two or more modes of travel to get to work in 2013, with the highest difference seen in the Western Cape.

The number of black women with driver's licences increased by 122% between 2003 and 2013, but overall possession of driver's licences remained skewed towards men: 15% of women and 32% of men had a licence in 2003, compared with 19% and 35% in 2003.

The figures for black African women increased from 4% to 10% over that period.

Men were more likely to leave for work before 6am, and spent more time travelling in all provinces, at 46.3 minutes compared with 43.2 minutes for women.

Source: BDpro