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Occaisonal Paper

Scotland's Census 2001 - Statistics on Travel to Work or Study

Differences in mode of commuting by sex

Table 13A gives details of the sex and means of commuting of people living in each council area.

Just under half of commuters (49.7 per cent) were male.  This was higher than the share of the general population aged under 75 (49.1 per cent male).

Male workers/students varied from 48½ per cent in Glasgow City to just over 52 per cent in the Shetland Islands.  13 council areas had more male than female resident workers/students, including Aberdeen City alone among the four main city authority areas.

Male travellers living in every council area were more likely than females to go to work or study by car or similar transport and less likely to go by public transport.  These differences were highest in Midlothian where 59 and 17 per cent of males travelled by car (or similar) and by public transport, respectively, compared with 49 and 26 per cent for females.

Table 13B shows the same information as Table 13A, except that people are classified by the council area in which they worked or studied.

Male workers/students varied from 46.3 per cent of those working or studying in West Dunbartonshire to almost 53 per cent for workers/students in Shetland.  21 council areas had more female than male commuters working/studying there.

Males working or studying in every council area, except East Renfrewshire, were more likely than females to travel by car (or similar).  This was particularly the case in North Lanarkshire, where 61 per cent of males and only 51 per cent of females travelled in this way.  In every local authority area, females working/studying there were more likely to travel by public transport.  This was noticeably the case in City of Edinburgh, where 23 per cent of females, compared with 16 per cent of males travelled on public transport.

While the gain in “daytime population” for Dundee City, City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City was roughly equally split between males and females, this was not the case for Aberdeen City, where around 60 per cent of the gain was accounted for by males (Table 13C).

While there were overall losses in “daytime population” of over 1,000 people in Argyll & Bute and Renfrewshire, in both areas there was a gain of males which was outweighed by a larger loss of females.  The gain of 2,900 people in Stirling consisted of a loss of 100 males and a gain of 3,000 females.

In the four city council areas, 71 per cent of the gain in male “daytime population” was accounted for by people travelling by car or similar.  This compared with only 60 per cent for females.  By contrast, only 28 per cent of the gain for males was as result of people commuting by public transport, compared to 40 per cent for females.

The information in Tables 13A, Table 13B and Table 13C makes it clear that males are more likely to get to their place of work or study by car or similar and that females are more likely to travel by public transport.