Travel
Shopping accounts for 1 in 4 of women's trips
Trips per adult per year: by purpose, 1999-2001, GB
Both men and women make roughly the same number of trips each year, over 1,000. There are differences in the reasons for travel. For men, commuting is the most common reason for travelling, while for women it is shopping.
In 1999-2001 men made 65 per cent more business and commuting trips each year than women. Women made 20 per cent more shopping trips a year than men and over 40 per cent more escort trips (where the main purpose is to accompany someone else, such as taking a child to school). These patterns reflect, in part, differences in working and childcare patterns between the sexes (see related links: Work and Family).
Men travel further than women for almost all purposes. The average length of men’s trips was 14 kilometres in 1999-2001, compared with 10 kilometres for women. Consequently, men travel considerably further within Great Britain each year than women: an average of 14,800 kilometres in 1999-2001 compared with 9,900 kilometres.
This difference has narrowed in recent years. The distance travelled annually by both sexes increased between 1989-91 and 1999-2001, but the increase for women was greater at 10 per cent than that for men at 4 per cent.
The car is by far the most dominant form of transport for both men and women. In 1999-2001, 67 per cent of trips made by men were by car, compared with 62 per cent of trips made by women. Women are more likely to live in households with no access to a car (25 per cent compared with 17 per cent of men). Women are more likely to walk than men, making around a quarter of their trips on foot, compared with around a fifth for men.
More men than women hold full car driving licences, although the number of women with a licence has gradually increased since the mid-1970s. In 1975-76, 69 per cent of men held a car driving licence, compared with only 29 per cent of women. By 1999-2001 these figures had risen to 82 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.
Men are also more likely to be the main driver of a car than women. In 1999-2001, 66 per cent of men were the main driver, compared with 42 per cent of women.
The greater use men make of cars may be one reason why they are more likely than women to be a casualty in a road traffic accident. In 2001 the annual casualty rate (those killed, or seriously or slightly injured) was over 44 per cent higher for men than women.
Men are more than twice as likely as women to be killed or seriously injured in a road accident: 99 per 100,000 men in 2001, compared with 44 per 100,000 women. The rates are higher for men irrespective of the mode of transport they are using.
Although men and women make almost the same number of visits abroad each year for leisure purposes, 25.2 million compared with 24.9 million in 2001, they make many more business trips - 6.7 million compared with 1.5 million for women.
Sources: National Travel Survey, 1999-2001, Department for Transport; Road Casualties Great Britain 2002, Department for Transport
Notes: Adults are aged 16 and over.
Trip: A trip is defined as a one way course of travel having a single main purpose. The purpose of a trip is usually taken to be the activity at the destination, unless that destination is ‘home’ in which case the purpose is defined by the origin of the trip. Other personal business trips include those for education purposes.
Main driver: The main driver of a household car is the household member which drives the furthest in that car in the course of a year.
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