Women's place
Professor Susan Hanson's research
Geographer Susan Hanson
is convinced that an understanding of geography--in this case, where people live compared to
where jobs are located--is key to understanding women's access to employment opportunities.
Studies of time spent commuting have revealed that women, on average, tend to work closer to
home than men. Hanson, along with colleague Geraldine Pratt (University of British Columbia)
wanted to have a better understanding of why many women have shorter commutes, whether by choice
or necessity, and how having a short commute affects their employment opportunities.
Hanson and her research team learned that, for many women, a job close to home satisfied a need to be more readily available to family members. This was particularly true for women with the shortest commuting times. For other women, it was important to live within walking distance of the workplace, in case there was a problem with the car, or another household member required it. Neither of these considerations was very important to the men in the study.
As geographers, Hanson and Pratt know that opportunities for employment are not uniformly distributed across a landscape. Zoning rules and the space, supply, and transportation needs of different businesses create a segregated employment landscape. They examined the location of manufacturing and producer service firms and found that these businesses may also be segregated by gender as well as location: some seem to hire predominantly men, while others are more likely to be staffed by women. Thus, a person's residence may not coincide with an area of appropriate employment opportunities. If securing the "right" job is of primary importance, and changing residential location is not an option, people may opt to drive as much as one to two hours to work.
The researchers concluded that, because of the uneven way employment opportunities are distributed across space, women's shorter average commuting time can severely restrict their employment opportunities. This appeared to be a particular problem for relatively well-educated suburban women with young children seeking part-time employment. These women were frequently employed in jobs that did not take full advantage of their skills.
Statistical averages often conceal interesting and important details in the sampled population. The study also revealed that:
- While average commuting time was similar for men and women sharing the same income group, and tended to increase as income increased, women were much more likely than men to be employed in lower wage/shorter commute jobs.
- While average commuting time was similar for men and women employed in skilled manual labor and professional/managerial positions, the commuting time for women was significantly shorter in unskilled and skilled non-manual positions. Men were much more likely than women to be employed in skilled manual labor and professional/managerial positions.
- Neither age nor marital status was a predictor of commuting time for men or women.
- Women with no children at home averaged a slightly longer commuting time than women with children, but still not as long on average as men. The presence or absence of children had no effect on men's commuting time.
- Women employed fulltime averaged longer commutes than women employed part-time.
- Women employed in female-dominated occupations (such as cashier, textile machine operator, or elementary school teacher) had shorter commute times than women in non female-dominated ones.
In order to explore the relationship between gender, commuting time, and job availability, the research team undertook a massive data-collection effort. Extensive personal interviews were conducted with employed and unemployed women and men (mostly white), as well as selected employers. Hanson and Pratt commissioned a customized "run" of US Census data at the tract level in order to map the location of employment by gender and job type. The interview data was broken down such that comparisons could be made across
- gender
- occupation type (male-dominated, female-dominated, gender-integrated)
- industry type (for example, manufacturing, health and human services, etc.)
- transportation used for commuting
- household /family type (for example, single earner, dual earner, marital status, parenthood status, etc.)
- income
- age
- skill level of work (manual, skilled, professional, managerial, etc.)
Maps and statistical techniques were utilized to examine the data.
Hanson and Pratt chose Worcester, Massachusetts, and its surrounding metropolitan area as the setting for their study. The research took place over the course of several years in the late 1980s. Hanson and Pratt were assisted in their data collection and analysis by a team of graduate and undergraduate students from Clark University and UBC. The study was funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society and three grants from the National Science Foundation, and results were published in a number of academic journals as well as the book Gender, Work, and Space.