WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2012 GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT BACKGROUND PAPER GENDER AND MOBILITY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD Uteng, Tanu Priya 2011 The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Development Report 2012 team, the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
Gendered Bargains of Daily Mobility Citing cases from both Urban and Rural settings February 2011
Informal Workers, Indonesia Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]]
Tanu Priya Uteng Research Fellow Department of Civil and Transport Engineering Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) 0 Abstract ‘Access’ is primarily a gendered phenomenon in the developing countries, pertaining to all the subsets of access, i.e. access to information, rights, land, money, education, skills, political participation
and voice. It thus becomes incumbent upon the policy makers and development practitioners to shred
down the details of these ‘constrained accesses’ to truly empower women. This study highlights the
ways in which constrained (daily) mobility i.e. the element of physical access to different facilities
bears upon the issue of women empowerment. Rather than being a singular function of transport
provision, the daily mobility of women in developing countries is guided by a set of complex
hierarchies. This study contends that the following elements, though not exhaustive in nature, are
highly influential in gendering of mobility in the present times: prevalent social/cultural norms,
transport infrastructure, physical/area planning, effects of globalization, governance (women’s
presence and participation in informal sector and micro-credit schemes), pre and post disaster/conflict
rehabilitation process and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although the
study is primarily a review of recent academic and policy-oriented literature, the core idea has been to
salvage the theme of ‘women and transport’ from the narrow confines of transport-related
understanding and highlight that ‘mobility’ is a multi-faceted phenomenon and bears significant
impact on the overarching aim of women empowerment.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the World Bank or any of its affiliated organizations.
1
CONTENTS
Part I – Gendered Daily Mobility
4
1. Introduction
4
2. The necessity for focusing on daily mobility and not just revealed travel behavior
6
2.1 The social content of mobility
8
2.2 The gendered content of mobility
10
3. Theoretical insights from the Developed World
11
3.1 What are the gendered differences?
11
3.2 What are the methodological flaws responsible for gender-blind
transport policies?
12
3.3 What future directions have been recognised (in past research) for
further developing the agenda of gendered mobility
13
4. Theoretical insights from the Developing World
13
4.1 What are the differences?
13
4.2 What are the methodological flaws responsible for gender-blind
transport policies?
16
4.3 What future directions have been recognised (in past research)
for further developing the agenda of gendered mobility?
17
Part II – Understanding the issues which impact gendered daily mobility in Developing
Countries
18
1. Social/Cultural norms
18
2. Transport-related issues
20
2.1 Access to health services
20
2.2 Access to education
22
2.3 Public Transport (PT) Services
23
2.4 Bicycles and Intermediate Means of Transport
26
2.5 Review of the transport-related development
28
3. Gender ‘un’concious Urban (Spatial) Planning / Area Development
29
3.1 Comprehensive Plans / Integrated Area Plans
30
3.2 Creating safer space
34
4. Globalization
4.1 Daily mobility as a ‘quantifiable’ factor of progress
5. Governance Issues
5.1 Informal Sector Economy
5.2 Micro-Credit Schemes
35
37
39
39
42
6. Disaster and Conflict Situations
43
7. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) - Virtual Mobility
46
2
Part III – Analyzing the trends in Developing Countries
49
1. Rural Areas
49
2. Urban Areas
53
Part IV – Indicating Policy Directions
65
1. Discussion
65
2. Policy Directions
68
3. Limitations of this review report
75
REFERENCES
LINKS
3
Part I – Gendered Daily Mobility This report aims to elaborate the theme of ‘women and transport’. It does so by gleaning the nexus
between ‘gender and daily mobility’, and the ways in which this nexus coalesces to further embellish
the existing power-asymmetries in the production and control of time, spaces, roles, individual
agencies and structural barriers in the developing countries.
1.
Introduction Gender based variations of daily mobility is an established phenomenon in both the developed and
developing parts of the world. However, the depth of understanding this phenomenon varies
significantly, given that majority of the research studies have focused on the developed world and on
travel behaviour of women, without giving due attention to the causes and consequences of their travel
behaviour. A thorough establishment of daily mobility, or even travel behaviour, segregated along
gender lines in developing countries is largely amiss (Peters 2001). This study aims to bridge that gap
at the theoretical and policy level by providing a focused view on the developing countries.
A recap of the development interventions undertaken in the developing countries to impact gender
equality, women’s empowerment and poverty reduction highlight their limited success. Despite
extensive discourse and resources that have focused on women as key actors for development, their
situation has not changed considerably (Cunha,2006). A little unearthing reveals that regardless of
using gender as a label, most policies and programmes failed to truly incorporate gendered issues
primarily due to a lack of understanding of the contextual realities and a dilution in the process of
transforming goals to implementable projects. Very often this has resulted in running the development
programmes as patch-in solutions rather than a cohesive, coordinated attack at the problem. This
precisely is also the case in transport sector. The sector is persuasive in its technical details but equally
ignorant of the nexus between constrained mobility and missed opportunities; context based planning
versus copying standards from the west; and the linkage of women, daily mobility and empowerment.
Before embarking on the issue of the gendered daily mobility in developing societies, it is equally
important to highlight another big divide, that of urban-rural dichotomy. The context at these two
levels is significantly different and therefore any generalizations would be prone to great fallacy. Apart
from the social, economic, political, production-related and other tangible elements of this divide, the
issue of culture vis-à-vis positioning of women in the psyche of accessing ‘outer space’, ‘kinds of
activities’ and legitimization of this access makes a deep dent on the urban-rural divide. The necessity
for a stratified understanding is further augmented by the fact that more than half of world’s
population is living in urban areas today, according to the State of World Population 2007 report from
the United Nations. The urban share is likely to rise from 75 percent to 81 percent in more developed
countries between 2007 and 2030, and from 44 percent to 56 percent in less developed countries.
Forecasts indicate that urbanization will occur most rapidly in Africa and Asia doubling its urban
share between 2000 and 2030. Travel-behaviour analyses further highlight that modal splits, timeusage, willingness-to-pay, access to opportunities and (untapped) potential for movement are more
diverse in urban areas, and vary greatly across the gender faults (Morikawa 2003). Apart from these
factors, ‘globalization’ is essentially an urban phenomenon. And globalization for developing world is,
in a nutshell, about accessing opportunities which is evident in the huge rural-urban migrations taking
place.
4
A vital question emerging out of these trends is ‘how are the forces of globalization, urbanization and
gendered mobility intersecting?’ Further, due to the rise and intensity of disaster and conflict situations
and the precarious position of women in these situations, it is important that mobility needs assessment
are inserted as vital elements of post disaster/conflict rehabilitation processes.
Given the focus of past studies on the rural aspects of gendered mobility (Ahmed2000; Ahmed et al.
2001; Airey et al. 1993; Bamberger et al. 1998; Bamberger et al. 1999; Barwell et al. 1993; Barwell
1996; Barwell et al. 1989; Burjorjee, et al. 1997; Fernando 1997; Heyen-Perschon 2005; Howe et al.
1993; IC NET Ltd. 2004; IFRTD 1999; Kudat 1990; Levy and Voyadzis 1996; Malmberg-Calvo
1994a,b; Murphy 1997; Njoh 1999; NORAD 1990; Overton 1994, 1996; Peters D. 2001; Potgieter
2006; Rankin 1999; Riverson et al. 2006; Scheinman et al. 1989; Stock 1996; World Bank, 1996b,
2002a, 2006), this study aims to supplement the knowledge by highlighting the associated urban
realities in the developing countries (Both rural and urban scenario is presented but segregated at these
two levels, generalizations are avoided due to the stark variations in the respective contexts). The
focus is to cull out the aspects which can be directly addressed through policies. Though an
unequivocal understanding will be difficult on the subject given the pluralism of societies, cultures,
economic positions and gender-related disadvantages, a novel beginning can be made by outlining the
specifics of the mobility-related themes which can be directly addressed through policies.
In short, this paper reviews research studies drawing attention to insights that can inform strategies for
shaping transport/urban planning policies in a way that enables gender equity in daily mobility
profiles. This is followed by an effort to outline the parameters which affect gendered profiles of daily
mobility. Despite the wide variations in types of economies, institutional mechanisms, and cultural
forces that reinforce gender inequalities, there are still some common approaches available for
developing countries. In order to mark this beginning, the study will be divided in the following parts:
Part II – Understanding the issues which impact gendered daily mobility in the developing countries:
The aim here is to highlight the issues which are prima facie not related to, but bear significant
repercussions for gendered movements. This part will explore how daily mobility is either reinforcing
gender norms in the frame of
representation versus reality and
Figure 1: Percentage of Urban Population 2007, of tradition versus modernity or
being produced as an effect of
these dialectics. To this effect, we
can group institutions, laws, social
practices, cultural representations,
religious constraints coupled with
changing contours of development
politics,
education,
multiculturalism
and
(as)symmetries of power and
opportunities. Other equally vital
trends
include
globalization;
advent of Information and
Source: United Nations Population Fund (2007) State of World Population;
Communication
Technologies
United Nations Population Division (2006) World Urbanization Prospects: The
2005 Revision.
5
(ICTs); disaster and conflict situations and issues related to governance.
Part III – Analyzing the trends in developing countries:
This section will be informed by the reviewing studies at both theoretical and policy level in the
developing countries. Majority of the available studies, to the best of the author’s knowledge, will be
referred to in this section through both examples/cases and an inclusive discussion. The major
restriction in this part is the inability to access unpublished reports from the different countries.
Part IV – Indicating the possible policy directions:
An indicative list of the possible directions, to combat the issue of constrained mobility faced by
women of the developing countries, is suggested in this section. It draws on the discussions presented
in various parts of this study and generously borrows from other research and policy documents. Some
of the recurrent suggestions and yet eluding the practice of urban-transport planning have been
highlighted here. The themes raised here comprises of: building gender sensitive methods of collecting
data and analyzing different growth patterns; public transport structure and supply including the
modes of walking, non-motorized modes and intermediate means of transport (IMTs); informing
better urban-design/planning with a focus on creating safer social-spaces; giving gender a parametric
weight in efficiency calculations (cost-benefit analyses) and transport modeling; making access to
market, education, training-facilities an essential part of micro-credit schemes; analyzing the ways in
mobile phones can be utilized to dilute the barriers created by constrained physical mobility; and
mainstreaming mobility issues in post disaster/conflict rehabilitation.
2.
The necessity for focusing on Daily Mobility and not just Revealed Travel Behaviour Discourses on the concept of mobility have traditionally described it as physical movement (operating
in the domains of geography, urban planning and transport) on one hand and a change in social status
on the other (a sociological construct). Mayers (2005) contends that ‘from the 80’s, this barrier started
to melt away with numerous attempts from both sides to integrate approaches and to mutually get
involved into scientific discourse. This involved addressing space, place and locality as a cultural and
social category (see Gregory and Urry, 1985; Featherstone, 1990; Lash and Urry, 1994; Urry, 2000;
Latour, 1999, Bonß and Kesselring, 2001 and 2004. He further sketches the cohesive nature of social
and spatial mobility, contending that a change in geographical/spatial mobility patterns affects the
individual space of options and action, thus producing varying terrains of social mobility. On a similar
note, Langan (2001) describes the theme of mobility as a desired end, an end that is not only a
function of personal achievement but a product of several constituent and affecting parameters.
‘Rousseau long ago declared in The Social Contract that the cripple who wants to run and
the able-bodied man who doesn’t will both remain where they are. But by focusing on
internal resources and intentions, Rousseau forgot to mention all those whose mobility is
affected by external constraints. To consider those constraints is to notice how the built
environment – social practices and material infrastructures – can create mobilitydisabilities that diminish the difference between the ‘cripple’ and the ambulatory person
who may well wish to move.’ (Langan 2001: 459)
6
Concurring with the importance of context in production of mobility, Cresswell (2001:20) espouses
mobility as a movement that is socially produced, is variable across space and time, and has visible
effects on people, places, and things, and the relationships between them. Mobility, unlike movement,
is therefore a contextualized phenomenon. Jones (1987:34) puts forth the three components of
individual action, potential and freedom of action to express mobility. In short, they are interpreted as:

Individual action: in the form of observed movement or travel;

Potential action: in terms of journeys that people would like to make, but are unable to because of
limitations in the transport system and/or their own commitments restricting them in time and
space, or financial restraints; and

Freedom of action: which may never manifest in action, but gives the individual options from
which to select and the knowledge that he/she could do something.
With relation to gendered movement, it is the individual action which has been studied in detail but
much is left to be studied in the realm of potential action and freedom of action. Knie (1997)
introduces a related understanding of the concept, and emphasizes that mobility is about the
construction of possibilities for movement, rather than actual traffic. Sørensen (1999) notes that the
analysis of mobility is basically about the performance, real as well as symbolic, of the provision of
physical movement in society. In the following points Kaufmann (2002: 37) postulates the three
determining factors shaping the mobility levels and patterns of the individual:

Access to mobility-scapes (representing transport and communication infrastructure as potential
opportunities) including both the availability and the usability (such as the price level, schedule,
etc.) of these.

Competence referring to the ‘skills and abilities’ necessary to use the accessible mobility scapes.

Appropriation, as a third factor, involving all behavioural components, such as the need and
willingness to make use of the scapes, to become mobile.
Kaufmann also espouses the idea of mobility as a restricted good. These opportunities emerge as a
function of market relations; for example, being related to and being limited by geographical locations
(the vicinity of transportation scapes and access points such as motorways, hub airports, and railways).
Nijkamp et al. (1990: 22-24) argue that an analysis of mobility and the underlying causes for its
demand should be undertaken on a broad scale in the context of the following four themes:



Socio-economic context of analysis, which focuses attention on the influences of exogenous
socioeconomic conditions upon spatial
patterns of interaction;
Part II – Understanding the issues Technological context of analysis, which
which impact gendered daily deals with the implications of changes in the
technological environment on the spatial
mobility in the developing countries behaviour of individuals or groups in our
Part III – Analyzing the trends in society;
developing countries Behavioural analysis, which focuses
Part IV – Indicating the possible attention on motives, constraints and
policy directions uncertainties facing individuals, households
7
and groups when taking decisions regarding transport, communication and mobility; and

Policy analysis, which concerns the evaluation of actions, usually the application of policy
instruments or measures of decision making agencies regarding transport.
Sorensen (1999) summarizes these thoughts under the term ‘mobility regimes’ to highlight the
historical and cultural basis of mobility. A mobility regime results from a number of factors, some of
which consist of the physical shaping of cities and landscapes, the available transport systems, the
relationship between mobility and economic, social and cultural activities and the meaning attributed
to mobility. Mayer (2005) reinstates the questions of interplay of social and spatial mobility with
regard to deprivation (in spatial mobility):
‘Those who for some reason – should this be mental, social, geographical or
economic – do not have access to all kinds of latest-standard mobilities will only
have limited choice of options and therefore a disadvantageous position both on
consumer and labour markets.’ (Mayer 2005)
These reflections from theoretical insights suggest that mobility cannot be analyzed in a purely
instrumental, objectivist mode and that it remains a subjective dimension differing with the
distribution pattern of the constituent resources. A differential accessibility to these resources maps out
different mobility regimes distinguishable at the levels of people, places and processes. Mobility, thus,
emerges as an enabling characteristic, a sought after rather than given ‘good/commodity’. The
understanding of mobility has thus crossed the narrow confines of speed and distance and entered the
wider realm of discussion on identity formation, freedom and rights. In an effort to recapitulate this
evolvement, Sager (2008) notes:
‘The link between mobility, freedom, and rights is long recognized and well established.
Evidence for this is found, for instance, in Article 13 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. Its first paragraph declares that ‘everyone has
the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state’. The
idea of mobility as a right is found in important policy documents, like the policy
guidelines of the EU’s White Paper on European transport policy: ‘Personal mobility,
which increased from 17 km a day in 1970 to 35 km in 1998, is now more or less seen as
an acquired right’ (European Commission 2001:11). The connection between freedom
and mobility is easily seen, as high mobility implies a high level of freedom of choice to
travel, which in turn is a prerequisite for self-decision on what activities to participate in.’
(Houseman 1979)
Thus, mobility, as a concept has permeated the areas of politics, economics, history, social setup,
popular culture, access, travel behaviour and movement in understanding the creation of identities,
empowerment, conversions into social norms and the circulation of these through time and space. It
brings forth the asymmetries of power and opportunities which might elude a pure transport focus, and
therefore this report builds on the theme of ‘mobility’ of which the dimension of ‘transport’ is a subset. The following sub-sections sketch the social and gendered contents of mobility for highlighting its
un-negotiable position while disusing ‘gender and empowerment’.
2.1 The social content of mobility It is widely assumed that ‘the convergent effects of globalization and cross-border organizational
learning have rapidly outpaced the divergent effects of cultures, national institutions and social
systems’ (Mueller 1994). Products of unrestricted mobility and the markers of postmodern times, time 8
space compression and social fluidification have come to be accepted as given characteristics of the
present times. Yet both these concepts remain grossly under-examined in terms of their social
distribution. Kaufmann, in an analysis of social fluidification, notes that ‘the crux of the debate over
social fluidification is whether or not the compression of time-space goes hand in hand with a decrease
in certain social constraints that discourage action. It is thus a question of analyzing who has access to
which relevant technology and the degree of freedom afforded by the usage of this technology’
(Kaufmann 2002:14). The very idea of fluidification supposes that social and territorial structures take
the backseat to a context that is capable of accommodating the most diverse aspirations (ibid: 87). But
is that the truth? Massey, in a critique of Harvey’s all-encompassing notion of time-space
compression, remarked that ‘different social groups have distinct relationships to this anywaydifferentiated mobility; some are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement,
others don’t; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by
it’ (Massey 1993:61). Cresswell succinctly captures this point of view:
‘The question of how mobilities get produced – both materially and in terms of ‘ideas’ of
mobility – means asking: who moves? How do they move? How do particular forms of
mobility become meaningful? What other movements are enabled or constrained in the
process? Who benefits from this movement? Questions such as these should get us beyond
either an ignorance of mobility on the one hand or sweeping generalizations on the other.’
(Cresswell 2001: 25)
In the milieu of dissecting mobility, past research has demonstrated that access to mobility entails
processes which are essentially highly differentiated along the lines of structural differences in society,
related to gender, class, race, caste, and so on. A similar line of research under the aegis of the Social
Exclusion Unit in UK is being promoted under the theme of ‘transport and social exclusion’2. Three
interpretations of ‘social exclusion’ are as follows (Lyons 2003):
1. ‘Experiencing public service failure’ – this recognizes that while it is the individual or community
that suffers the consequences of social exclusion, it is the system or societal structure that has
given rise to exclusion.
2. ‘The discrepancy between what you can do and what you want to do’ – this is a helpful
interpretation that reflects the perspective of the individual concerned and suggests the beginnings
of a means to measure in absolute and relative terms the extent of exclusion experienced.
3. ‘A spectrum of deprivation’ – this interpretation aims to underscore that social exclusion is not
something that has a binary state (i.e. an individual A is excluded or included) but rather that
everyone in society can be found on a multi-dimensional scale of exclusion or deprivation. Social
policy and benchmarking then determine the point on that scale beyond which the level of
deprivation is considered unacceptable.
Grieco (2003) notes that despite promises made, transport and social exclusion research remains
relatively weak in its appreciation of processes and equally weak in its determination of what should
be measured. Nonetheless, certain key points can be gleaned from this research agenda to enlarge the
discussion on differential mobility, with reference to issues such as categorization of excluded groups,
public transport and exclusion, the time-space interplay and its differential structure, and place/socialcategory/person based measures. The theme of ‘transport and social exclusion’ also introduces the
notion of mobility as a part of citizen entitlement, as Grieco (2003) notes ‘Demand responsive
9
transport systems developed on an intelligent technology footing can ensure that accessibility and
mobility constraints to essential services are removed or minimised in line with identified benchmark
levels of citizen entitlement’. The four accessibility items presently analyzed under this approach are
access to a food store, to primary health care, to a primary school and to a post office; these
accessibility criteria are clearly restrictive as a measure of social deprivation or social exclusion.
Though acceptable as a departure point, there exists the need to develop a better sense of the
comprehension of physical accessibility as a subset of mobility. Clarifying this line of distinction,
Levine and Garb (2002:179) note that ‘Mobility is defined as ease of movement; accessibility is
defined as ease of reaching destinations. The concepts are related, but readily distinguishable. Where
destinations are close by, great accessibility can be afforded even if mobility is constrained; where
destinations are remote, mobility may be high without concomitant high-level accessibility’ (as quoted
in Sager 2005). The next section touches upon the gendered content of mobility and the necessity of its
acceptance as an important theme while discussing a modern society.
2.2 The gendered content of mobility In order to address the situation where the needs of a respective gender were getting obfuscated, a new
and focussed direction under the umbrella of ‘gender and transport’ gradually evolved in the western
world. Attention to transport offered a way to link discussions of gender relations, transport systems,
public and private spaces, accessibility, and the spatial and temporal organisation of human activity
(Law 1999:567). However, Law (1999) notes that the field is still largely defined in terms of travel
behaviour and policy, eventually stagnated by a relatively limited range of themes (primarily a
singular focus on women’s typically shorter worker trips). Could this have occurred due to a biased
comprehension of mobility of which transport is just the revealed part?
The understanding that eluded development planners for a considerable period of time is that the frame
of operationalisation of transport occurs under the broader context of mobility. Though transport and
mobility are very often used in a synonymous manner, they have distinct connotations. Mobility is a
contextualised phenomenon whereas transport is just the revealed part of it. The concept of mobility
entails the ‘potential aspect’ thus possessing an inherent knowledge of the potential trips that are/were
not made due to constraining factor(s) (social, cultural, technological, infrastructural, political and
financial). Concurring with the way Law (1999:568) envisages it, a better way to address ‘gender and
transport’ is through reframing the issues of transport as part of a larger project, namely, analysing the
social, cultural, technological, infrastructural, political and financial geographies of mobility.
The interaction between spatial mobility for negotiating daily lives and other forms of mobility (social,
economic, political etc.), has not been substantially explored. Specifically, a focus on the
operationalisation of gender norms and consequently gendered mobility permit an inquiry on the
theme of development, democracy, equity, and their distribution through the resource of mobility
offered by different societies. Polk (1998) states that ‘Despite the complexity of reasons underlying
social inequalities, if social equality is the goal and spatial equality is the means then equal access to
transportation technologies can be seen as a necessity.’ Enlarging this understanding, it also becomes
essential to evaluate the differential claims on genders due to cultural beliefs and norms as being
equally or in some cases the most important factor dictating daily mobility, and how these beliefs and
norms are changing in the present times. Are these changes supportive or detrimental to the cause of
10
gender development and empowerment? Which transport-related issues can be corrected through
policy interventions to aid the positive changes?
Further, such an inquiry will also lead to a better formulation of space-making attributes. Tracing the
shifting and contested meanings of ‘good girls’, ‘obedient daughters’, ‘virtuous women’, and
‘respectable places’ in the developing world brings into focus the ways in which the cultural struggles
over gender norms influence the causes and consequences of mobility (Silvey 2000:145)1. Space,
whether sacred or profane, is not produced in vaccum, but rather through a web of cross-cutting power
relations that are themselves forged at multiple scales from the local to the global (Massey 1994; as
quoted in Secor 2002:7). Similarly, regimes of veiling participate in the production of urban space and
shape the ways in which women, both veiled and unveiled, experience mobility in the city (ibid: 8).
In order to build up a mobility profile of the developing world, the transport research arena provides a
good foundation to enumerate the gender differences and build a case for redesigning of methods,
analyses and policies. The next two sections deal with theoretical insights from the developed and the
developing world and present the gist of studies dealing with gendered differences in travel behaviour,
the methodological flaws responsible for gender-blind transport policies and the identified future
directions.
3.
Theoretical Insights from the Developed World 3.1 What are the gendered differences? Travel behaviour research abounds with evidence illustrating the difference between women’s and
men’s transportation demands and realities. A clear line of justifying separate treatment of women has
been established owing to differentiated access and attitudes to private and public transport,
differences in patterns of commuting and employment, differences in child and elder care
responsibilities and finally the differences emerging from the contextualisation of traditional female
roles. Although parameters like income, age, household size and structure, elder-child care
responsibilities, ethnicity, employment status, degree of disability, location, class, and education can
produce significant differences among women’s mobility patterns, certain key observations are
enumerated below:

A number of research efforts undertaken in developed countries reported that gender-differentiated
roles related to familial maintenance activities place a greater burden of time on women relative to
men in fulfilling these roles. This results in significant differences in trip purpose, trip distance,
transport mode and other aspects of travel behaviour (which includes different times, to different
locations over different distances) (Erickson 1977, Andrews 1978, Hanson and Hanson 1981,
Howe and O’Connor 1982, Fagnani 1983, Fox 1983, Pas 1984).
 Women spend more time on household maintenance activities and less time on leisure than men,
with the result that women make more frequent but short trips (Hanson and Hanson 1981, Lu and
Pas 1998, Pas 1984). Kwan (1999) restates the evidence that women have restricted space-time
accessibility compared to men.
1
Referring to this theme, ‘moral geographies’ is defined as the ways in which gendered normative ideologies operate in place
making and shaping spatial mobility and spatial relations.
11








Women’s trip scheduling and chaining also tends to be more complex than men, especially if
there are dependent children in the home, creating more spatio-temporal constraints on their
activity participation (Gordon, Kumar and Richardson 1989).
Hanson and Hanson (1981) report that women adjust their schedules to accommodate their fulltime employment with little or no adjustments from their male partners. Women are also less able
to adjust their schedules and travel patterns to accommodate alternative schedules or transportation
modes (Rosenbloom and Burns 1994).
Childcare obligations can require low-income women to seek employment closer to home than
men (Chapple 2001).
Differential access of the genders to resources, notably time, money, skills and technology lead to
differences in travel and transport patterns (Law 1999, Kaufmann 2002, Turner and Grieco 1998).
Access to automobiles appears essential for labour force participation in low-density settlements
(Burns 1996, Uteng 2006). And with restricted access to automobiles, women’s daily mobilities
emerge and give rise to a differentiated labour market and personalised space-time opportunities.
Mobility is also affected by labour market factors, which result in a differentiated geography of
opportunities for men and women.
Security issues affect men and women in markedly different ways. Women are more easily the
targets of sexual assaults related to transport provision and delivery systems. Law’s (1999:570)
literature search on the issue reveals that self-imposed precautionary measures adopted by women
limit their mobility significantly.
The built environment, including the organisation of land use, physical layout and design of
networks (bus design, roads, paths etc.), facilities (such as bus shelters etc.) affect men and women
differently (Law 1999, GLC Women’s Committee 1985).
3.2 What are the methodological flaws responsible for gender‐blind transport policies? It is a well-established fact that transport sector has been gender-biased, or perhaps gender-blind is a
more appropriate aphorism. This bias/blindness has been recognised as being part of a systematic
methodological flaw, emerging primarily from ignoring the innate differences between the mobility
patterns of men and women. Research conducted in the United Kingdom (Hamilton, Hoyle and
Jenkins 1999) points out the following primary flaws plaguing the transport system:
 The scarcity of women in central positions in policy making and the planning of transport;
 The systematic failure to incorporate the voices of women users in the consultation and planning
of transport systems.
Further, the growth of automobile-dependent societies points to a deliberate snubbing of the mobility
needs of women. In all societies, women are primarily dependent on public transport. This has been
substantially established by travel behaviour research undertaken around the world, and yet the
provision of public transport is far from satisfactory in all parts of the world. And strangely enough,
even developed countries are characterised by restricted and poor provision of public transport. Travel
studies from the US, Scandinavia and the UK recognise that i) automobility (car usage) is explicitly or
strongly implicitly a male form of transportation and ii) structural factors such as impediments to
accessing reliable public transportation facilities and consequently low spatial mobility lead to social
inequality in the disfavour of women. Despite a raft of such evidence, public transport systems
continue to be built around the needs of men without adequately addressing the needs of women.
12
3.3 What future directions have been recognised (in past research) for further developing the agenda of gendered mobility? The benefits of including systematic recognition and gender consultation in transport planning have
long been established through research. Further linkages with social and human capital development,
democracy and participation through strengthening the mobility potentials of women have also been
raised. Some vital directions that have been described are (Hamilton et al. 2005:65-72, Jauk 2005,
Turner and Grieco 1998):




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
4.
Improve the provision of public transport to provide door-to-door demand-responsive services.
The evolution of high-tech development management is proceeding rapidly. For it to proceed
effectively, it must build in effective participation as demonstrated by the Global Knowledge 97
electronic conference hosted by the World Bank and the Canadian Government
(www.globalknowledge.org). The development of electronic user groups facilitated by community
communication facilities is already a possibility. Ensuring that gender is built into the electronic
protocols is essential: the new social opportunity for electronic advocacy should not be wasted;
Engage women transport users effectively in the transport policy decision-making process.
Women’s involvement in decision making regarding those services that affect their lives is a
democratic good. At a basic level, the presence of women in the composition of user groups has to
be assured. The focus on women-only user groups is derived from the evidence that when women
speak within mixed groups, conversational dynamics work against them;
Enforce more rigorous monitoring of efforts to correct gender bias;
Devise methods to integrate transport and social policies;
A public transport gender audit should be made part of both public sector duty and community
planning strategies to enable local authorities to implement it;
Another way advocated to address the time-poverty faced by women is through substituting real
journeys by tele-journeys (Turner and Grieco 1998). But the kind of training and facilities that are
required to make this a reality are still unclear and need to be further explored.
Theoretical Insights from the Developing World 4.1 What are the differences? Surprisingly, many similarities are to be found when comparing gendered travel behaviour among the
developed and developing parts of the world. Common features comprises a gendered differentiated
access and attitudes to private and public transport, differences in child and elder care responsibilities,
the resultant escort trips and finally the differences emerging from the contextualisation of female
roles. However, certain key points special to the developing world are: existence of huge disparity
between the ‘urban, educated, middle-class’ versus ‘urban, uneducated, low-income’ women; access to
activities/ urban spaces/ transport modes/ and socially-sanctioned movements in ‘rural and semi-urban
areas’ versus ‘cities and metropolises’; existence of slums and permeation of religious beliefs in the
society putting tangible borders on women’s participation in the outside world. Importantly, we notice
that the developing world is characterized by a high dependence/demand and low availability of public
transport systems. Many countries are characterized by availability of para-transit systems like taxis,
auto-rickshaws, non-motorized rickshaws etc. which serve the needs of women to a greater extent.
However, these modes do not form part of the mainstream government run transport planning policies
13
and programmes, with little or no governmental backing in procuring loans, regularization of these
services etc. Further, gender division of labour in urban areas is different to that in rural areas. Unlike
in rural areas, urban women do not have to walk long distances in search of water or firewood, neither
do they carry heavy loads on their heads, shoulders or backs. Keeping these aspects in mind, the key
features of gendered travel behaviour in the developing world are presented at the levels of urban and
rural areas in the following section:
URBAN AREAS
Low-Income Women

Travel behaviour is disaggregated both at the levels of income and gender. Women spend more
time travelling on slower modes of transport to access work, and a significantly higher percentage
of trips are made by foot than men (Anand and Tiwari, 2006, Srinivasan 2008, Tanzarn 2008). A
poor access to transport resources and the resultant time–poverty circumscribes employment
options at shorter distances from home. Their ability to alleviate poverty is severely curtailed by
their limited mobility and the constrained accessibility to the transport system of the city.

Access to transport resources is highly gendered. Women are less likely to own a vehicle or have a
license to drive it. Women tend to have a lower proportion of trips involving personal vehicles
such as bicycles or other motorised modes. Non-motorized modes are their primary mode for
travel to both work and non-work destinations.
Poverty appears to be a defining factor of mobility especially for women. Cost of transportation to
the city commercial centre plays a key role in affecting women’s entry into self-employment
(Glick, 1999). Unaffordability to use any form of public transport leads in returning home earlier
due to safety concerns, thus losing out on business/employment opportunities, typically placed in
the informal sectors.
Women, especially those in the lower income bracket, spend a considerable proportion of their
earnings on transport. Whereas transport is supposed to play a facilitative role in securing
livelihoods, prohibitive fares intensify vulnerability to poverty.
Women in central locations with better accessibility are more likely to both make more trips and
travel farther for work trips. In the case of Chennai (India), living in a central zone allowed for
more parity in the travel costs and times of men and women (Srinivasan, 2004; Srinivasan and
Rogers, 2005). Travel behaviour of residents who are otherwise very similar (in terms of
socioeconomic status) is likely to be different if they live in locations with differing employment
and transportation opportunities (Moser & Peake (1987), Turner and Fouracre (1995); Abidemi
AR (2002)).
The shelter-transport-livelihood nexus vis-a-vis mobility of slum dwelling women remains a
highly ignored issue. Time poverty is considered a key constraint to low-income women’s ability
to accumulate assets and reduce their vulnerability (World Bank 2002). Many of the slum
relocation policies in the urban areas pay no heed to this linkage.
Responsibility for escort travel with children to school, to hospital, to pray and for social visits lies
primarily with the women. Men’s involvement is largely limited to providing the means of
transport if they are in a position to do so (Tanzarn 2008).
Safety issues hit women more intensely than men. Safety concerns can be broadly divided at two
levels: first is the case of poor physical infrastructure provision (absence of footpaths, poor
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14
location of bus shelters, absence of street lightings etc.); the second case concerns sexual
harassment on public transport services or walking down poorly lit streets, subways, connecting
path between the slums and bus stops etc. remains a common theme in many developing countries
(Anand and Tiwari, 2006, Tazarn 2008). The case of Bangladeshi garment workers is an
appropriate example, where movement-related fear is pervasive and one of the biggest quoted
concerns.
Middle-Income Women




Deregularisation and opening of markets in many developing countries have carved out new
niches of employment opportunities for women. However, this format of accessing new
employment opportunities is highly dependent on having access to safe, affordable geographical
mobility. For example, in some countries like Egypt, women’s commuting rates are not only much
lower than those of men, but have remained stagnant in a period (1988-1998) where males were
travelling significantly more to obtain private sector jobs (Assaad and Arntz 2005). Young, single
males, who make up the majority of new entrants in the labor market, have had to significantly
increase their geographical mobility to access regular paid work in the private sector. No such
increase in geographical mobility could be detected for female new entrants, resulting in a
growing gender gap in geographical mobility rates over the 1990s decade (ibid).
Majority of the employees in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) sector in India are
women, and they are able to work in night shifts solely on the basis of transport provided by the
offices, which is typically contacted through private taxi companies. However, there exists no
security structure for these privately rented taxis chauffeuring women at nights resulting in
gruesome cases of rape, molestation, thievery etc. Instead of being proactive and placing the
security concerns at the very inception stage of such night-shift planning, there is tendency to be
warned through mishaps. Similar patterns of development of BPOs are being observed in other
Arab countries like Jordan. It would be prudent to be informed through the case of India and place
security concerns from the very start while designing transport solutions for the night shifts.
Shortage in public transport supply is a deterrent to women’s mobility due to their restricted
access to privatized modes of transport. Expansion of urban areas, relocation of slums, booming
satellite townships with no concomitant public transport handicaps women to a greater extent than
men. This holds true for both low-income and middle-income women.
With an onslaught of sexual harassment of women on public transport, women-only passenger
cars on subways, local trains, and women only buses, taxis are becoming more popular in the
developing countries. Whether this is a sought development in terms of future planning remains
debatable, but what it does achieve is hassle free movement for women, thus encouraging their
mobility.
15
RURAL AREAS
Cunha (2006,8) reinstates the reality of rural areas:
In sub-Saharan Africa, women account for 70% of household labour and 85% of household
daily effort spent on transport. They carry at least three times more ton/kilometres per year
than men. They walk between 15-30 hours per week on transport-related chores, carrying
between 30-50 kilograms and frequently with a baby on their backs. These are heavier loads
than the maximum 20 kg recommended by the International Labour Organisation, and
commonly result in long-term health problems. To help their mothers, young girls are often
removed from school to assist with chores (Heyen-Perschon, 2001; Peters, 2001; Omar,
2001; Starkey, 2001; World Bank, 2002a).
Both research and policy interventions covering the area of ‘gender and transport’ in developing
countries has to date primarily focused on rural areas. The key findings that stand out in analyzing the
literature and programmes conducted in the developing countries are:

Most of the differences between transport needs arise due to the constructed roles of men and
women in society.

Transport burden of rural women is more accentuated than men – it is best illustrated by the
dominance of head-loading and the transport of firewood and water by rural women (Venter et
al. 2006; Bryceson et al. 2003; Grieco et al. 1995, 1996, 1997; Mashiri et. al. 2001, 2006;
Malmberg-Calvo 1994a,b).

Access to education and health services are severely compromised for girls and women in the
rural areas of developing countries. It is noted that in Ethiopia alone, over 25000 women and girls
die each year during labor. More than 500,000 Ethiopian women and girls suffer from disabilities
0.3% of all deliveries (8000-9000) develop obstetric fistula, for which obstructed transport is
cited as one of the primary reasons (Hamiln 2004).

These constructed roles and the transport burden (especially in terms of time savings and manual
labour) can be to a great extent mitigated by providing the right interventions, thereby opening
possibilities for women.
4.2 What are the methodological flaws responsible for gender‐blind transport policies? The one basic answer to this question is that the issue of daily mobility has never been made an
integral part of policy and programmes targeting development and empowerment in the developing
countries. Evaluations of the success of development initiatives often neglect to reflect the gendered
distribution of benefits or consider the influence of social-reproductive works on these interventions
(Venter et al. 2006). With regard to Gender Planning and Development, Moser (1993) noted that
analysts often “lack the necessary planning principles and methodological tools” to do so. This applies
for the transport planning field as well (Mashiri et al. 2005). Further, not taking count of nonmotorized transport modes in the planning process is a blatant denial of the contextual reality of the
developing countries.
With regard to rural women, another marker in the alteration of gender roles is happening due to
internal migration or immigration in search of better employment. This results in reversed role
assignment with women becoming the head of the household. How these changes impacts upon her
access to market and vis-à-vis maintain the rural labour cycle still needs further exploration. Most
often, the transport linkage between rural and urban areas are a challenge for women given their
severely restricted frequency, overcrowding and expense.
16
4.3 What future directions have been recognised (in past research) for further developing the agenda of gendered mobility? The research directions identified are overlapping and consistent, which means that we have a wellresearched and documented platform to base future projects on. Some of these directions (includes
inputs for both urban and rural areas) are:
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Adopting an inter-sectoral approach in relieving women’s transport burden, particularly in
bringing various resources to rural women (for example, water wells closer to rural homesteads
and energy efficient ovens). The same can be said for urban slum-dwelling women, for whom
access to basic services, employment niches and markets need to be integrated as part of any
slum-redevelopment or relocation projects.
Recognition of women’s social-reproductive work as “work”, in order to design public transport
in a way that better meets women’s needs
Building of paths, roads and bridges to connect socio-economic activities and health facilities
through affordable transport services.
Researching and considering the role of cultural practices and beliefs is also an important step
towards the design of appropriate transport interventions. The importance of this has been
identified as being two pronged: Locally specific cultural practices and beliefs inform the
allocation of roles, status, power, and resources within households and communities. Thus,
knowledge of cultural practices and beliefs is essential for understanding the gendered ways in
which households and communities function and thus for identifying various transport needs
through a gender-sensitive lens. For this to be achieved, meaningful involvement and
participation of women in the planning of transport initiatives is critical.
Cultural practices and beliefs affect the success of transport interventions. For example, the
benefits for women through the introduction of IMTs will be influenced by whether or not those
forms of transport are considered appropriate for women, and by the gendered control and access
to such resources.
Disaggregated data collection followed by routine monitoring is often mentioned as the starting
point for evaluating the gendered content of mobility in the developing world. Yet, this has failed
to be adopted in mainstream transport planning in most of the developing countries. Data
unavailability is one of the major handicaps affecting analysis of mobility in the developing
countries.
17
Part II – Understanding the issues which impact gendered daily mobility in the developing countries 1.
Social/Cultural Norms Understanding gendered mobility outside the patriarchal system and the social-cultural norms
dictating the visible movement of women will be tantamount to segregating the body and the mind.
The concept of gender is constructed through performative reiterations, which are historically,
geographically, culturally and politically different but dynamic. Opposition of relative flow and
relative fixity where masculinity has come to be coded as mobile and femininity as static, and
construction of different kinds of mobility that exist in relation to one another (the homemaker and the
breadwinner for instance) has been the lead practice in many developing countries. This point is
central to the current analysis of how mobility enables/disables/modifies exclusionary processes
affecting women in particular. Even in the active, technological world of today, opposition of relative
flow and fixity of women is widely practised in many non western cultures thereby affecting their
access to central services like education, work, and health as well as to the intangible entitlements of
participation and information. How this access can be modified must be placed with due respect
attached to the persuasive social norms otherwise any attempts at it will go in vain.
Operationalisation of gender norms and consequently gendered mobility will permit an inquiry on the
theme of development, democracy, equity, and their distribution through the resource of mobility
offered by the society. Although Polk (1998) frames this connection through highlighting the distinct
role played by transportation technologies and equity, this report argues the same within the ambit of
mobility potentials. She states that ‘Despite the complexity of reasons underlying social inequalities, if
social equality is the goal and spatial equality is the means then equal access to transportation
technologies can be seen as a necessity.’ Enlarging this understanding on gendered mobility, it also
becomes essential to evaluate the differential claims on genders due to cultural beliefs and norms as
being equally or in some cases the most important factor dictating daily mobilities.
Thirdly, such an inquiry will also aid in a better formulation of space-making attributes. Tracing the
shifting and contested meanings of ‘good girls’, ‘obedient daughters’, ‘virtuous women’, and
‘respectable places’ brings into focus the ways in which the cultural struggles over gender norms
influence the causes and consequences of mobility (Silvey 2000:145). Space, whether sacred or
profane, is not produced in vaccum, but rather through a web of cross-cutting power relations that are
themselves forged at multiple scales from the local to the global (Massey 1994; as quoted in Secor
2002:7). Similarly, regimes of veiling participate in the production of urban space and shape the ways
in which women, both veiled and unveiled, experience mobility in the city (ibid: 8).
Fourthly, there is the issue of ‘the scale of the problem’ owing to cultural traditions which is difficult
to measure. ‘Honour killing’ is still a practised tradition in many Islamic countries. In 2009, Dr
Shaheen Sardar Ali, chair of the National Commission on the Status of Women in Pakistan, estimated
that at least three women a day were victims of honour killings. But the calculation of respective
figures is not so simple. Citing Human rights lawyer Hina Jilani, co-founder of Pakistan’s first allwomen law firm, ‘a woman’s right to live depends on strict obedience to social norms and traditions.
In many cases her place in society is summed up by the adage Kor ya Gor (home or death)’. Another
source asserting the helplessness of rural women state that "These voiceless creatures, shackled in a
18
primitive mode of life, are treated worse than even tradable commodities: they are but household
possessions, living and dying at their males’ whims". Bringing basic human rights to this segment of
the population is not an easy task. It will only be made possible through consistent effort taken in all
development-related sectors addressing this issue in a gradual, deliberate and percolative manner.
But by incorporating culturally appropriate interventions, transport sector can make a direct impact on
the access and visibility provided to women without making any direct attack on the social norms
existent in developing countries. This requires a conscious insertion of the acceptable ‘modes’,
‘spaces’ and ‘timings’ of movement for women and designing policies and programs with these
specifics in mind. Some of these successful interventions are highlighted in the following boxes.
Box 1: “AMMAN 2025″ MASTER PLAN
One of the first major restoration projects conceived in the Amman Master Plan involves miles of new and improved
sidewalks – with benches. Through basing the planning processes on the premise of “social diversity and justice”, the
positive effects of small changes are being recognized and implemented. The intervention of introducing new sidewalks
and benches are discouraging “islands of privilege,” fostering interaction among different socioeconomic classes in
areas that were becoming exclusively upper-class. They are also breaking down gender barriers in a predominantly
Muslim city. Women who say it would be culturally unacceptable for them to hang out on the street or sidewalk say
that now, with the new pedestrian plazas and sidewalk benches, it’s normal for them to spend time on the street.
The city has adopted to build a new bus rapid transit (BRT) system with the specific aim of discouraging car use, and
helping to create a new culture of public transit. Seen in conjunction with improved sidewalks and public spaces, one
can see a more acceptable platform for women to move about in the city of Amman. This kind of accepted movement
and visibility of women in public spaces is bound to deliver more opportunities to them for participation in various
arenas. For details, please refer: http://www.ammanplan.gov.jo/english/docs/EVision.pdf
Box 2: Women-only Services, not just for safety but for increasing women’s mobility and the
consequent change in their participation
The rise of the ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh since the 1970s has made a dent in the economic
participation of women by providing them with opportunities to work outside the home for wages for the first time.
This has coincided with changes like increased emphasis on girls’ education, improvement in women’s health,
relaxation of norms regarding purdah, reduced fertility, shift in marriage and child bearing age-profile, reduction in
family size, greater acceptance of women in decision-making etc. (Khosla 2009). Prima facie, this trend should
continue. However, the issues and hazards specific for women in this industry might not be conducive for any longstanding sustainable development. Transport issues are among the biggest concerns for these workers. With no
provision for getting safe transportation, specially at nights makes economic participation of these women a daily
struggle (Kabeer 2004, Siddiqi 2003). In such cases, safe transport provision provides the most unbiased and easy way
of securing women’s continued participation, upliftment and empowerment in the end.
With the specifics of preventing sexual harassment on public transport, Women-only passenger cars (on
railways/subways) and buses are being offered (or in the pipeline) in Japan, Egypt, India, Taiwan, Brazil, Indonesia,
Belarus, Philippines, Dubai, Korea and Mexico (the pink buses). It has repeatedly been proven to be a great source of
relief for the women commuters in these countries. From a culture specific point of view, research studies posit that
segregated reserved seats and segregated doors on buses are preferable and seen as conducive for the movement of
women in societies divided along gendered lines (Peters 2001).
One of the most advocated interventions by development agencies has been provision of bicycles in
the rural areas. Though it might seem a positive, benignant intervention on surface, a little unearthing
of the gendered aspect of bicycle usage will reveal that many cultures do not accept such movement of
women primarily due to rigid culture underpinnings in women’s movement and its representation.
Overton (1996) documents a case in rural Mozambique where bicycles that were distributed to poor
village women to alleviate their extreme transport burdens were taken from them by their husbands or
19
other male relatives, who often only used them for recreational and status purposes. In some cases,
especially where women resisted, these appropriations were even accompanied with instances of
domestic violence. In such extreme cases, male-dominated prevailing local cultures also tend to
portray women's use of bicycles as inappropriate and unwomanly, branding the more daring,
dissenting women as "loose," "behaving like men" and "unfit for marriage" (Grieco et al. 1995,
Overton 1996). Similar cases can be found in many countries with wide pre-dopminance in ruralurban Africa (Peters 2001). But before generalising this trend, a reversal of such imaginary is
portrayed through the case of motorized two wheelers or scooters. Peters (2001) reports that since
scooters are important status symbols for middle income families, its insertion in the mobility regime
of women in Bamako, Mali has been relatively easy. Rather than being critical and dissuasive of
women's newly found independence and mobility, husbands in Bamako are supportive of their wives’
motorcycling. Reportedly, the idea is less rooted in efficiency of women through optimizing the time
for shopping and other caretaking related jobs, and more rooted in women on scooter having the
ability to advertise their families social status and wealth. Mobility has always been linked in with
progress, and how the subtleties of various forms of mobility imprints on the psyche of the society is
an important point of entry into making any meaningful and long lasting changes in the travel
behaviour of the population at large, and women in particular. The case of scooter usage runs counter
to simplistic assertions that insurmountable cultural biases keep developing country women from
gaining access to individual means of transport. Also, with the increasing participation rate of urban
women in gainful employment, women are in a position to buy their own vehicles. This was reported
to be the case for 39% of all interviewed female motorcycle and scooter users in Pune, India (Astrop,
1996:35). Meanwhile, portraying a completely different trend of bicycle usage is the case of Southeast Asia, where bicycles continue to be the most important mode of transport in many communities
and with women’s bicycle usage being at fairly equal levels as men. In Vietnam, the advent of the
motorcycle has now caused to raise women’s share of bicyclists to over 50%, with roughly 25% of all
female trips in Hanoi being made by motorcycle. Meanwhile, 54% of all female trips are made by
bicycle, compared to 38% of all male trips (Goddard and Cusset, 1996).
What is evident is that rather than being an issue of power struggle within the confines of the
household, women's access to different modes and public spaces are primarily dictated by local
cultures and general social practices. And it is important to take away from this fact that through
making small, incremental and locally-acceptable changes, development projects can address many
culturally rooted restraints at relatively low additional cost, often yielding immediate and significant
results for future.
2.
Transport‐related Issues 2.1 Access to Health Services Morbidity and mortality are common outcomes for pregnant women in rural parts of the developing
world, which is increasingly being connected to a lack of timely access to the health services. Though
limited location of health facilities is definitely the primary cause with figures stating that more than
60% of people in poor countries live more than 8 km from a healthcare facility (Forster 2008), there
exists numerous studies that blame inaccessibility due to either lack of transport options or
affordability as the second major cause of pregnancy-related mortality (for a case from Tanzania, see
20
Mlay R. Et al. 2010; for a case from Ethiopia see Forster 2008, Hamlin 2004)2. Citing a research study
from Cebu in the Philippines, we see the explicit relationship between the distance to a health facility
and worsening maternal mortality figures. The study identified a clear association between infant,
child, and maternal mortality rates and distance to healthcare services, it was found that a 10%
increase in distance from a hospital was associated with a 2% increase in all three mortality rates (De
Silva). Highlighting the rural dimension of this problem, Heyen-Perschon (2005) note that though
access to health services in the developing world is poor but it gets significantly worse in the rural
areas as represented by the example from Ghana where it was found that while 79% of births in urban
areas were supervised by a medical practitioner, the rural figure was as low as 33%. This is a
consistent finding in all parts of the developing world.
Another parameter linking mobility burdens and women’s health is the issue of head-loading. A study
on women fuel carriers in Addis Ababa showed that of 276 women sampled, an average load of 36.2
kg (i.e. 75% of body weight) was being carried an average of 11.7 km, and as many as 17% of the
women were carrying loads heavier than their body-weight (Peters 2001). This result should be seen in
reference to the maximum carrying weight recommended by the ILO, which is 20kg. Among these
women, eye, chest and back pains were common, coupled with high rates of miscarriage (Haile, in
Bryceson and Howe 1992:7-8). To substantiate these claims, Kenyan medical sources also document
frequent backaches and knee damage among head loading Maasai women. To gather further support
for this particular coupling of mobility and gender, it has been estimated that at any given time, one
third of all women in the developing world are either pregnant or lactating (Momsen, 1991, cited in
Turner and Fouracre, 1995) and child carrying has to be accommodated in a way to still guarantee the
safety and well-being of the child, further reducing women's "maximum carrying capacity." Another
very important avenue for making meaningful contribution is the linkages between transport
availability and the incidence of HIV. A case study of South Africa highlights this connecting in the
following box.
2
Case of Ethiopia (Forster 2008): Based on a survey of patients at the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, it was found that
on average it takes 11 hours for women in labor to reach a health care facility capable of addressing their needs. It was
reported that ‘access to the health facilities’ and the ‘inhibitive cost’ of transport were the two most important factors
contributing to the occurrence of fistula. Women in labor, typically, spent several hours travelling on a make-shift stretcher
over difficult terrain which could have induced other health complications for the mother. Where access to roads was
available, delays of several days were often encountered as families tried to raise the money necessary for hiring a vehicle to
transport the patient. Emergency transport costs are an overwhelming financial burden for families across Africa. Even short
distances are subject to this difficulty. The delays in access to health services caused by the difficulties in raising such sums
of money are one of the important contributors to the occurrence of obstetric fistula and subsequently increased vulnerability
in the country (Hamlin 2004).
Case of Tanzania (Mlay R. Et al. 2010): A case study designed to explore the emergency transport needs of rural pregnant
women in Erri village, Babati District, Tanzania through a cross-sectional design. 250 women of childbearing age were
interviewed, 12 men and 12 women participated in focus group discussions (FGD), and 7 women were interviewed using the
critical incidence technique. Information on community awareness of women's needs for locally available and functional
transport for emergency obstetrics referrals was obtained using a structured questionnaire, FGD and critical incident
interviews. The questionnaire revealed that 75% of women with 7 years of school in this study, were more likely to seek help
from the district hospital than women with 5 or fewer years of schooling. Women who lived nearer to emergency obstetric
facilitates were more likely to use these facilitates than those living far away. Having a bicycle in a household did not
influence the woman's decision about where to seek help during an emergency. Seventy percent of respondents (43/61) who
used a bicycle revealed that when women encounter emergencies it takes more than half a day to reach the district hospital.
Almost every participant declared the hardship in accessing emergency obstetric care related to lack of funds and
unavailability of the transport. During FGD women shared stories of mothers and newborns who had died on their way to
emergency obstetric care. 21
Box 3: Amnesty International urges the South African authorities to urgently address a key barrier to women’s
enjoyment of their right to health – the lack of reliable, affordable and safe transport, particularly for women
living in poor, rural communities. The authorities appear to be overlooking this critical issue in their increased efforts to
combat the HIV epidemic and to address violence against women. In South Africa, women are disproportionately
affected by the country's HIV epidemic. Rates of infection among women 15 to 34 years of age are two to four times
higher than among men of the same age. An average of 30 per cent of women attending antenatal clinics are HIV
positive. As noted by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe in late 2009, these stark gender differences in HIV
prevalence rates are linked to the disempowerment of women, which is one of the “key drivers of the epidemic”. South
African-based studies show that women in abusive relationships have a long-term increased risk of HIV infection. They
are less able to refuse unprotected sex with a male partner. Furthermore, men who are perpetrators of domestic
violence are more likely to be involved in high risk behaviour, such as having multiple concurrent unprotected sexual
relationships. While several laws have been amended to increase the protection of women from sexual and other
forms of gender-based violence and improve their access to justice, such abuse remains pervasive. Women from poor
rural communities are often unable to reach places of safety and other emergency services. Long distances as well as
relatively expensive and infrequent transport, especially late at night, act as major barriers for them. These barriers
must be overcome, to enable women who experience gender-based violence to have access to places of safety, and to
have access without delay to emergency medical treatment, including to reduce their risk of HIV infection. These same
transport barriers also prevent women living with HIV in similar circumstances from regularly accessing treatment, care
and support services. While the health authorities continue to expand access to comprehensive HIV services, including
the provision of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for AIDS, these services are still primarily provided through hospitals. The
cost of transport to these distant facilities is often high, especially for women affected by poverty and unemployment.
In February 2010, the government announced an increased budget for combating HIV. In April, the government and
the South African National AIDS Council launched an implementation plan to scale up the HIV and AIDS prevention
and treatment programmes. The objectives of this plan are in line with a widely agreed strategy in place since 2007.
However, while all government departments have been urged to cooperate in these reinvigorated efforts, the role of
the Department of Transport has not been recognized. Quoting that ‘while the Government marshalled resources to
improve urban-based transport systems for the World Cup in June 2010’, Amnesty International calls for a meaningful
consideration to the transport needs of economically and socially marginalized, rural women at risk of or living with
HIV.Source: http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/address-barriers-transport-costs-undermining-rural-womens-right-health
2.2 Access to education This section build on a recent study published by Gina Porter (2007) covering the linkages between
transport, (im)mobility and spatial poverty traps for rural women and female children in sub-Saharan
Africa. She highlights that in remote areas, areas with poor physical access, or areas with strong
(culturally imposed) mobility constraints on females, poor access to schools is likely to be an
important contributing factor to girls’ low educational achievement. This fact is also true for many
parts of rural Asia, cases from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, are abound on the subject. To specify in
numbers, data from Morocco suggests that in the area of influence of major rural roads which had
been paved, the percentage of girls attending primary school tripled to 54% (while the percentage of
boys doubled to 81%): increases in areas where road improvements had not been made were much
lower (cited in Levy and Voyadzis 1996).
Porter (2007) presents the analysis of a study conducted with children, their parents and teachers in
Ghana and some preliminary research in a linked three-country study (Ghana, Malawi, South Africa).
It was found that in each of these countries, girls living in remote rural areas with poor roads and poor
or expensive transport services face particular problems in accessing educational services for a variety
of cultural, economic, and social factors. The study is replete with cases and quotes to paint a succinct
picture if the realities faced by these young women in accessing education. The gist of these cases is
that girls at all ages are expected to perform substantially more house work and associated chores than
boys, this burden is especially severe in many remote rural areas where the transport gap brings
22
additional demands especially for girl-child labour as transporters. This is well exemplified by the
relatively remote Shire highlands village in Malawi (approximately 8 kms from the paved road, on a
laterite road of adequate condition to allow motor access but with no regular transport passing
through) where many children are absent from school on two days each week when markets are held
in nearby towns since they are required to headload firewood for sale. The head teacher observed that
many of the pupils suffer lack of concentration, ill health and illness because of these chores, but this
is particularly the case for girls. Not surprisingly, then, girls in this village tend to be less successful in
the competitive examinations for entry to Secondary School. Only five out of 30 eligible children (four
boys, one girl) had been selected in the previous year, so the remaining 25 who were not selected
(boys and girls) are mostly enrolled as ‘night scholars’ at the secondary school on the paved road (i.e.
paying for lessons from the teachers after the school day has finished there). The night scholars
(usually around 13 to 15 years old) walk 8 km. along a laterite road to the secondary school in daylight
but must return home in the dark: this poses hazards for girl students. “The older girls who attend [the
secondary school] because it’s so far and it’s a night school and they come back late with the boys,
they form ‘marriages’, then they get pregnant and drop out….” “Girls just fall into marriage” [group
discussion with four mothers in their 30s and 40s]. Clearly the barriers faced by many children in
remote rural areas with poor and expensive transport services in accessing even a basic education are
impossibly high. Girls, in particular, may never be enrolled at school or only attend intermittently, not
least because of their required role as porters to fill the transport gap. For those girls who are enrolled,
the heavy burden of household chores required of them before they leave for the long walk to school
in the morning seems to be ubiquitous. Fear of punishment for being late (due to the work followed by
a long walk) in some cases encourages truancy, while failure to perform well at school may often be
associated with exhaustion. There are also dangers associated with travelling alone along remote
paths, or in the dark, such that parents living in remote locations may prefer to withdraw their
daughters from school at a young age (or not to send them at all) if they must travel alone.
In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that so few girls in remote rural areas are able to obtain
even a basic education, and that the opportunities for women to develop a livelihood which will
eventually lift them out of persistent poverty are so few. The majority of girls are condemned to
follow a life very similar to that of their mothers and grandmothers before them, competing in the
same narrow economic niches for the same meager rewards.
2.3 Public Transport (PT) Services vs. Private vehicle Ownership and Use A consistent finding from around the world (both developed and developing parts) is that compared to
men, women are more dependent on the PT services. Brennan (1996) states that women made more
trips with different reasons, and they depended mostly on public transport in Puebla (Mexico);
whereas Angela Astrop in her research regarding women trip behaviour stated that women with low
income depended on cheap public transport and walking in Pune (India). Similar to the cases in
Mexico and India, analysis of women behaviour in Palembang (Indonesia) show that women primarily
depend on public transport (88.7%). Survey results in Palembang further showed that women tend to
choose door to door service that can reduce walk trip and which wait for their customers, such as
becak (tricycle), Ojek (taxi-motorcycle) or minibus (oplet, mikrolet) in Indonesia and cycle rickshaws
in India. Similarly, in Latin America, though large buses predominate, minibuses have a growing share
of the market (Kunieda and Gauthier 2007). In African cities, buses represent a marginal share of the
23
public transport market, where minibuses or combi-taxis dominate heavily. In Senegal, for example,
some 58% of total passenger trips are made by 10 to 15-seat paratransit vehicles called Car Rapides or
Ndiaga Ndiayes, and large buses account for only 2.7% of total motorized trips. Studies, based on
gendered variations of time use and transport resources, from across the world further establish the
fact that women and men tend to use public transit at different times, with women more likely to travel
at off-peak hours. Issues like overcrowding and the resultant sexual harassment affects women to a
much higher degree.
Given this background, it will be interesting to compare it with the level of private vehicle ownership
and use by respective genders in the developing countries. The following facts predominate this theme
(adapted from Kunieda and Gauthier 2007):



Automobile ownership rates are very low in much of the developing world: for every 1,000
people, less than 5 are car owners are recorded in Haiti, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia, less than 7
in Bolivia, Zaire, and Honduras, and less than 14 in Liberia and Thailand. The rate of car
ownership in Brazil and Mexico is 60 per 1,000, in Europe 300, and in the USA 500 (that is, one
car for every two people).
When it comes to female vehicle ownership rates, the rates become even lower. In Nairobi, 9% of
women heads of households used a private car, compared to 24% of men. In Belo Horizonte,
Brazil, 6% of women used a car to get to work, compared to 23% of men.
The case of south-east Asia is interesting with its relatively high levels of bicycle usage by
women. This case once again reinforces the differentiated nature of access to transport resources
for the two genders. It is noted that as women gain access to older vehicles, such as bicycles when
men move to motorcycles, and motorcycles when men move to cars, etc. In 1990, only 35% of
households had access to some form of motorized vehicles in Ho-Chi Minh City. Four years later,
that percentage rose to 63%, mainly due to motorcycles. In Hanoi, the share of trips made by
motorcycles rose by 5 to 10% annually and now accounts for 37% of all trips. Meanwhile the
share of bicycles has fallen from 65% to 45%. Previously, women made up half of all bicyclists.
Now, they are the majority as men move to motorized means of travel (Godard and Cusset, 1996).
It is not difficult to incorporate these essentials while developing City Master Plans but the tendency
has been to perfect Master Plans for a car based system whereas in reality, only a minority share is
using it in the developing countries. Development programmes have the ability to bypass these
bureaucratic details and incorporate the elements of non-motorized transport, for example, in their area
planning schemes targeted towards low income population.
24
Box 4: The case of Auto Rickshaws in New Delhi
The public transport sector in the cities of developing countries consists of multiple options, including a variety of
motorized and non-motorized options. Studies around the developing world establish the importance of alternate
forms of public transport for women. However, these forms of transport hardly get their due recognition in
Government plans. The case of auto rickshaws in Delhi illustrates the point.
In Delhi, auto rickshaws are a common and widely used form of public transport. An auto rickshaw purchased
from the government costs around Rs. 130,000 but Rs. 460,000 if purchased from the black market. The current
trend has been that every fourth or fifth year, government brings out advertisement for buying autos. However,
the number is limited to approximately 10,000 autos. In majority of the cases, these are bought by the private
auto owner agencies, which then sublet their autos on daily basis. Personal interviews in Delhi revealed that the
chances of an individual driver buying a government issued auto are infinitesimal. Majority of the auto rickshaw
drivers are running rented autos on a 12 hour shift (divided between day and night shifts), paying around Rs.
300 to the owner on a daily basis. Personal interviews revealed that due to the emergence of a very strong urban
middle class resulting in exponential rate of car ownership, the clientele base for these autos has gone down
dramatically resulting in an average earning of gross Rs. 500-600 per day (net of approximately Rs. 300). No
loans are available for buying autos and thus the poverty trap for these auto drivers persists without any let out.
Further, only the educated auto rickshaw drivers (minimum class XIIIth passed) are issued a batch by the
government which ensures them against accidents on road. However, they are not part of any government
pension or any other plans. Despite their strong presence on the road, there are no dedicated lanes for the autos
neither are there any parking provision for them. Parking facilities in the market areas of Delhi are operated by
private groups which are often abusive towards the auto drivers and cater primarily to the car drivers. Typically,
on a four lane road in Delhi, one lane is dedicated to a combination of buses and goods transport (lorries, trucks
and SUVs), and the other three lanes are open for a mix of cars, motorcycles, autos and in many places a mix of
non-motorized modes as well. Streamlining this mode as a feeder service to the bus stops and metro stations in
terms of pricing, timing, physical amenities and presence on the road can have huge impacts on the mobility of
both low-income and middle-class women in getting them connected within their limited time budget, but it
seems that in a rush to seem modern, many developing countries are obsessed with a car-driven agenda at the
cost of other alternatives.
Analysing PT issues in rural areas still remain a challenge because of very limited or no availability of
it in the rural parts of the developing world. Though PT remains the primary way to access regional
markets as well as social, administrative and health facilities outside villages, services in rural areas
are infrequent and unreliable (Peters 2001). Further due to limited space and with overarching demand
as compared to supply, men get the first right to board buses in rural Africa and many parts of Asia
owing to the local mores of the continent. In tandem with the PT issue, it is useful to cite the case of a
self-help initiate in rural Kenya, which brings forth the urgency of providing service upliftment for
women (refer Box 5):
Box 5: Private Bus Arrangement by Rural Women in Kenya
Owing to the frustrations in accessing local markets and hospitals, rural women in Kenya decided to buy their
own bus. This is a rare case of self-help initiative which took place almost four decades ago (early 1970s). The local
women's group began a collective savings effort and they were even successful in providing their own service for
several years. The bus was paid for within a year and a half, but it was only with increasingly high repair bills on the
vehicle, that the group had to discontinue the services. Though this courageous venture was brought to a grinding
halt, PT still remains a challenge in major share of the rural parts of the developing world. Unlike developed world,
there is no paucity of demand in the rural parts of the developing world, but lack of political commitment, low
affordability and ignorance on part of the development programmes run by both government and non-governmental
organizations could be contributing to such a sustained state of mobility deprivation.
Source: Kneerim in: Doran, 1996 and Seeds in: Bujorjee et al, 1997, case quoted in Peters 2001.
25
2.4 Bicycles and Intermediate Means of Transport (IMT) Studies from many parts of the developing world show that though access to transport resources in
form of intermediate means such as wheelbarrows, carts, bicycles or animals can make a substantial
difference in women’s lives, women are generally deprived of direct access and control of these IMTs.
Though it has been noted before that cultural norms regarding women riding bicycles tend to be
prohibitive in Africa and Asia, these norms are perpetually in a state of flux and prone to changing
with the right interventions. Certain cases with positive results are quoted below to prove this point:

Porter (2007) notes that in parts of rural Africa, including areas with substantial Moslem
populations, women cyclists are becoming quite common: for instance at the southern end of
Lake Malawi, and in northern Ghana. It would thus be unwise to suggest that change will not
occur: clearly once a critical mass of cycles exists not only will repair facilities and spares be
more easily found, but cultural inhibitions may gradually disappear.

The case of Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu, India, is another apt example. This state is
highly traditional in its outlook on various issues like caste, role of women, marriages etc.
despite that, women’s cycling was included in a rural development program, admittedly with a
larger, strategic goal of empowerment connected to this pilot scheme. After the first ladies'
bicycles were made available to women in the area through the financial help of the Indian
Bank, cycling gained rapid popularity among females. Many of them pooled money in order to
collectively hire bicycles to acquire riding skills. Most importantly, cycle-owning men
eventually began to help teach women. The campaign was surprisingly successful. More than
50,000 women learned to ride bicycles in one year alone (Rao 1994 in: Doran 1996, case quoted
in Peters 2001).
Another case from Ghana establishes the ways in which the social psyche around women’s usage of
bicycles and motor bikes can be moulded. Apart from making important contributions to health
service provision, the provision of cycles and motorcycles to women health workers and NGO staff
has also aided in improving their acceptability in the wider population. The impact of motorbikes
among nurses in Navrongo (northern Ghana) is described by the maternal and child health worker as
following (Porter 2007):
“… all the nurses have motorbikes. They are off [to the villages] and by 2.30 they are back [at the health centre],
all done. A big improvement. It’s expensive but you are able to do more and it breaks the outreach size into
small pieces. You can’t do that when walking. [prompt] There’s no problem with women riding motorbikes. In
the north they’re used to riding bikes, even women of 45. Down south now it’s become the fashion to ride a
motorbike... that’s brave. You actually mean business…this girl is serious with her work … there’s a nutrition
officer from the north in Central Region. She rides her motorbike up and down, she can even go home [to the
north] and back… after some time some people also decided they must get motorbikes.”
Examples where motorbikes and bicycles have had positive impact on women is also to be found in
the recent massive expansion of motorbike and bicycle taxi services in some parts of rural Africa
(Porter 2007). They commonly operate from market centers and major paved road junctions into
remote areas where roads are poor and transport services sparse. In most rural regions these services
appear to be patronised more by men than women, but particularly younger women also use them, as
Iga (2002) and Howe (2002) show in Uganda. On the Jos Plateau, despite the speed and dangerous
driving of the young male drivers and the high fares (usually approximately double the standard bus
26
fare) many rural women see motorcycle taxis as a lifeline when medical emergencies arise,
particularly in the wet season when motor vehicles have difficulty negotiating rural roads (Porter
2002b).While usage is obviously restricted by the cost of fares, cycle and motorbike taxis offer
relative speed compared to walking, (door to door) convenience, and may provide a lifeline in
emergency situations. The fact that they can operate along unpaved paths which are too narrow for
conventional motorised vehicles, and in difficult road conditions during the rains, are additional
advantages. These advantages have also encouraged the growing interest in low-cost cycle- or
motorcycle-trailer ambulances among donors, notably for use in safe motherhood programmes. Porter
(2007) further notes that it is intriguing that the incidence of motorcycle and cycle taxi services varies
substantially, especially between countries: in Nigeria the motorcycle-taxi service seems almost
ubiquitous in some regions; in Uganda and Kenya a mix of services can be found; in Malawi, where
rural incomes are low, bicycle-taxis predominate; in southern Ghana, neither has yet become
prevalent.
Other IMTs such as hand carts which do not improve personal mobility, but can be used for
transporting loads within the village area may still offer significant advantages in terms of reducing
women’s time poverty. In southern Ghana IMT study (ibid), the locally-manufactured push trucks
obtained by women through the project were mostly operated by boys and men, but women in the
families felt some benefit. Individual interviews with women recipients and their families indicate the
potential for change (ibid): ‘now he can just send the truck while I work in the house…. I go less to his
farm now than previously. If he wanted to fetch firewood I needed to go with him, but now he can just
use the truck and the children to fetch it.’ (Paul Simpson’s wife, interviewed alone, March 2002).
‘A lot of work done by women I can do now, because I don’t carry, but I can use the truck…..Now for
the firewood I can convey it to the edge of the village with the truck, but because of our custom a man
shouldn’t carry firewood, but with the truck I can.
(Paul Simpson, teacher, interviewed separately,
Lome, January 2002)
‘Previously he was not helping me with the
firewood, but now he helps with the pushing of the
truck loaded with firewood.‘ (Aminatu, Lome,
March 2002)
Further, cases where there has been a reduction in
the amount of heavy crops carried by women are
also reported; though this generally occurs where
the fields are easily accessible from a track which
can be negotiated by a push truck:
‘When I want to process gari I just hire the truck to
convey cassava. [who operates it?] my brother…
pushes for me… [The truck] reduces my headload
and I don’t feel pains from headloading again…. it
has changed my time of headloading. … we also
used it to convey our maize… we used the truck for
Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]] 27
the entire harvest’. (Dora, Ewe woman, aged c. 30, Adabra, June 2002).
‘[The IMT] has reduced my time spent, because if I want to convey maybe 5 headloads, I can use the
truck or power tiller once to convey all. If I have 10 headloads to be carried to the junction and the
power tiller or truck is available, I can send my [male] child to take it to the junction, so I have much
time to rest.
[what do you do with the saved time you now have?] I use it for other work. If somebody wants to buy
something and I am not around the person will not buy from me. But since I have time to be around
now in the house, I use it for selling.
[Has your income changed?]The power tiller and truck have brought a difference to my income,
because now I can convey about 20 headloads of firewood from the farm to the village because I know
that the power tiller can convey it to the junction for me. But when the power tiller was not in, I could
not convey all 20 headloads, because I wouldn’t have been able to carry all the firewood to the
junction at one time. (Aba Akon, Abora, January 2002)
Why are these modes and their users marginalised? Source:Author, Pictures from India
2.5 Review of the transport related development It is reported that in spite of commitment and funding for bettering rural mobility in Africa, the share
of funding directed towards research and implementing solutions to rural mobility issues is limited and
often weighted heavily towards infrastructure. Since 1985, about 15-20% of World Bank loans have
been for transport investments (roads, ports, railways, etc), with nearly US$ 40 billion in loans/credits,
of which about US$ 2.5 billion (about 6%) has been specifically for rural transport (World Bank,
1999; Bamberger and Lebo, 1999). However nearly all this funding has been dedicated to
28
infrastructure and large-scale transport systems. Transport planners have paid little attention to
intermediate means of transport. The bias towards infrastructure and large-scale transport still exists in
national governments and donor agencies, and is reflected in terms of budgets, personnel and
professional training. Work undertaken by Transaid in reviewing the health service transport capacity
of many developing countries identified that as the health impact from vehicles is easily
distinguishable from other health system components, transport management is ignored at great cost.
The case of governmental approach to transport-related development in developing countries is also
similar in many ways. There is a heavy focus in portraying modernization through encouraging access
to cars to the urban middle class, accompanied with a either a total neglect or marginal focus on the
issue of soft modes (non-motorized transport, cycling and walking) and public transport. To illustrate
this point, I cite the case of New Delhi, India (Box 6).
Box 6: “Between 1957 and 2002, the population of Delhi increased by about seven times, the car population
by about 60 times, motorcycles by about 200 times, and buses by only 10 times. It is fascinating that though
there has been a huge increase in personal vehicles, the proportion of trips by cars has not even doubled.
However, this large increase in cars and motorcycles has preoccupied the concerns of planners ever since, and
the main concern has been to provide for more road space and reduce ‘congestion’. The Master Plan for Delhi
2021 is still focussed on widening roads, providing expressways and grade-separated junctions, and a metro
system for the city. The Plan has no specific provisions for expenditure on pedestrian infrastructure, and restricts
bicycle use to collector roads and access streets. The focus remains on the car, and the car-and-road system
would appear to be the winning technology. In 2002, the Government of India announced a new Auto Policy
with the objective to ‘Exalt the sector (automotive) as a lever of industrial growth and employment and to
achieve a high degree of value addition in the country’ because the ‘Indian auto sector needs to grow
collaterally and in harmony with world industry. India has the potential to be a global automotive power.’ This
has obvious implications for the forming of Indian transport and traffic policies.
From an economic point of view, the economy of Delhi has been growing by about 10% per year, and vehicle
ownership (cars and motorcycles) by about 15% (Economic Survey of New Delhi 2002). In Delhi today, the most
modern high-speed cars and motorcycles have to share the roads with slow vehicles and non-motorised modes.
Accordingly, the consciousness about global risks associated with chaotic urban transport is being recognized
also by the administration. The National Urban Transport Policy stated that ‘Travel in the city has become more
risky. This again has tended to impact the poor more severely as many of those killed or injured tend to be
cyclists, pedestrians or pavement dwellers’ (The National Urban Transport Policy of Govt. of India, 2005).”
3.
Gender ‘un’concious Urban (Spatial) Planning / Area Development Mobility is produced due to the fact of accessing facilities and opportunities in space. And since the
location of these facilities / opportunities is rendered by the spatial and urban planning processes, it is
vital that any discussion on gendered mobility also covers the aspects of spatial planning. This section
highlights how the traditional planning processes have been gender blind3. Gender equality can be but
often is not transformed into concrete planning contributions and strategies and as Todes (1995)
contends, ‘A gender planning procedure might have helped to identify spaces for action, and could
have provided a more systematic identification of needs’.
3
A blatant neglect of planning issues related to women is not a feature shared by developing countries alone. It is also part
and parcel of the planning domain in the developed countries, even countries where gender equality is a much celebrated and
established field of governance (for an illustration on Sweden, refer Friberg 2006).
29
3.1 Comprehensive Plans / Integrated Area Plans The primary aim of comprehensive plans, also known as strategic plans, is to specify future land uses,
infrastructure, and building configurations. Prognoses regarding demographic, economic,
transport/traffic, housing, regional development changes and notions gain physical and spatial
expression in comprehensive plans. There are two ways to approach making of such plans: a gendered
approach vs. the traditional gender-neutral position. Numerous case studies from around the world
show that men and women have different planning priorities, discuss planning issues differently
(Todes 1995; Beall & Todes 2004; Saad & Carter 2005; Erkip 2005; Friberg 2006; Whitzman 2007)
and thus a gendered approach to comprehensive planning should be adopted. This section is inspired
from the above-mentioned studies. Friberg (2006) contends that a gendered approach to planning is
different from the traditional gender-neutral position, although the gendered approach retains the
normal planning links with space and place. A gender perspective demands answers to the following
questions: Who has the power to plan, build, own and manage space? Who has the right to use the
space? Who has the right to categorize and change spaces? To answer these questions it is useful to
begin with the case of public space where planning lays down the fundamental features of the future
usage of the space. It is also directly related to mobility undertaken by women in terms of accessing
services, supplies and social networks. Given that women’s activities in public spaces are often
restricted (cf. McDowell, 1999), zoning that separates land uses such as residential and industrial
activities is often criticized because it is based on antiquated gender roles that confine women to local
private spaces (Greed, 1994; Darke, 1996). Often is the case that women are held responsible for any
unfortunate incidences if they do not comply with these norms outside their homes or places of work.
For example, women who are victims of assault when walking through a park after nightfall are often
blamed for the violence because they were ‘out of place’4. Apart from the existing lacunas in
infrastructural provisions, the reality of the daily lives of women has not permeated in the planning
process. For example5, the gendered division of household labour has major consequences for
women’s daily lives and their travel patterns and public space needs to be shaped so women can carry
out these tasks as smoothly as possible. To break this pattern, planning must start from everyday life,
including equally home and workplace, reproduction and production. This mode of ingress makes it
possible to identify how women’s specific experiences are linked to physical space by considering
issues as daily travel patterns, the relative locations of shops and workplaces, and security and safety
in public places. Box 7 highlights a case study of integrated area development (IAD)6 from Cato
Manor Development Project (CMDP) in Durban, South Africa. The CMDP is seen as an exemplary
project and has been recognised as a ‘best practice’ by the United Nations agency UN-Habitat. It was
4
Assault also occurs when women are subject to men’s leers and invectives, i.e. forms of sexual harassment (Rose, 1993;
Morell, 1996). In both examples, women’s activities are restricted by men’s power (cf. Little, 1999). A limits B’s access to
and use of specific spaces, A dominates and obstructs B’s freedom of movement, A taking space at B’s expense (Hirdman,
1990). A is undeniably the first letter in the alphabet and B is number two. The order of the letters is inspired by Simone de
Beauvoir’s analysis of the relations between the sexes in The Second Sex (Friberg 2006).
5
Women still do most of the unpaid work in private households, shouldering responsibility for the dwelling, children, the
sick and disabled, and the elderly.
6
Integrated Area Development (IAD) is increasingly being favoured as a response to social exclusion and economic
restructuring and as a form of ‘joined up governance’ and ‘development in the round’ (Turok, 1999), enabling multidimensional approaches to development needs in particular areas. While the limited feminist literature on IAD suggests that
practices have not been sufficiently gender aware (Brownill 2000; Brownill and Darke 1998; integrated area development
projects (IADPs) offer a potentially important space for gender sensitive planning and practice.
30
one of the first ‘Special Integrated Presidential Projects’ of the post-apartheid era, beginning as an
infrastructure led development project, providing an integrated physical environment including a
major residential component, but later shifting to a greater emphasis on social and economic
dimensions (Beall and Todes 2004). What this case conclusively establishes is that a multi-sectoral
and integrated approach offers space for innovation and close attention to local dynamics. In this case,
the emergence and implementation of a gender-aware approach was made possible through facilitative
political and policy conditions, politically empowered and organized women, and gender-aware
professionals.
Apart from accessing opportunities, having the ability to be mobile empowers women in
myriad ways. Amir-Ebrahimi (2006) quotes the case of post-revolution Iran to emphasize how
frequent presence in the different public spaces gave women a new consciousness about themselves
and their individual and citizen rights in the society. Through his focus on the methods employed by
Iranian women to conquer enclosed public spaces, he is able to elucidate the direct linkages existing
between entering public spheres as social actors and to gain power, albeit in silence, in different sociopolitical and cultural fields. To illustrate a case of how new mobility for Iranian women is being
created due to spaces being made accessible to them, he quotes the following excerpt from an
interview:
Tomorrow I go to the stadium, like many other men and boys. Tomorrow I go to the stadium
to restore the right which maybe I will never use it, like many other women and girls.
Tomorrow I go to stadium to remind the authorities that we (women) exist. I go to the
stadium and sit next to men who be insulting, say insanities and other weird things and I will
applaud Iran’s football team. Men who are in the street my ‘‘religious brothers’’, but it seems
they turn to be wild wolves at the stadium... I do not adore football; this is only Iran’s
football team and its presence in the World Cup, which is important for me. For me it is
much easier and more pleasant to see football at home... I am not fan of any football player.
Maybe if they did not ban us (women) from going to the stadium, I would never go.
However, tomorrow I go there to remind the authorities, that is my normal and citizen right to
be there, this is not for the football that I go there; but for exercising my right to be there
(Guissou Faghfouri) http://www.hanouz.com/archives/001713. html (7 June 2005)
The mobility of women in developing countries can be enhanced through providing suitable spatial interventions. Safe, accessible public plazas (left), provision of toilet facilities (below) are basic steps in the direction of diluting the between inner‐outer space divide in the developing countries. Source: Author, New Delhi, India. 31
Box 7: Highlights from The Cato Manor Development Project (source: Beall & Todes 2004)
The CMDP is an urban restructuring project located seven kms. from the city centre of Durban. Aimed at providing
housing and an integrated urban environment for a largely low-income black population, it was seen as a strategic
and highly visible project aimed at redressing some of the spatial divides created under apartheid. Established in 1993
with considerable political support, the project had to respond to a series of challenges as well as to a rapidly shifting
social landscape. Under apartheid legislation, it was subsequently zoned as ‘white’ and some 200,000 black people
were relocated to distant peripheral townships. Before these forced removals in the early 1960s, the area was home
to powerful women’s organisations that emerged to challenge apartheid influx control laws and subsequent relocations
(Edwards, 1996). This history was encountered by the CMDP, as it was later invoked to organise women towards
development in the area. The decline of the apartheid state also gave space for the establishment of inclusive local
forums, negotiating the development of cities in the early 1990s. The Greater Cato Manor Development Forum
(GCMDF) was established in 1990 and by 1992 had developed an integrated planning framework in the area. Nearly
half of these households (48%) were headed by women, many of whom had lost husbands during violence. Young,
unemployed single people also formed a large proportion of in-migrants (Makhathini and Xaba, 1995).
Crime was a critical issue from a gender perspective. A Crime Prevention Strategy was initiated by CMDA in this period
to respond to crime and violence and women played key roles in formulating and implementing it. Hence, women
were not passive in the Cato Manor context. A set of powerful women leaders, linked to political structures, was on
the board of the CMDA and played key roles in the representative community structures that were set up. These
women did articulate women’s interests, and were not easily intimidated. Yet gender relations were not simple.
Community representative structures set up by the CMDP tended to be dominated by political parties, ensuring good
representation of women since there was political commitment to a form of quotas for women. However, it also meant
that women’s organisations outside of this net were excluded and some gate keeping occurred. Aware of these
dynamics, the CMDA set up broader communication strategies to reach community members directly, including a
community newspaper, mass meetings (attended predominantly by women) and localised participation around
particular projects and issues. The CMDA also attempted to facilitate women’s participation through the times at which
meetings were held and by offering transport home to ensure safety. Women played an active role in committees and
were sometimes dominant in numbers (an estimated 40% of development committee members comprised women
overall). As a consequence of a prolonged period of contestation throughout the early years, delivery only began in
1997. Apart from the crime prevention strategy, the initial focus of the project was on physical development—on the
delivery of infrastructure, housing, services, and facilities. At this stage, as has often been the case elsewhere, little
direct attention was given to women or gender issues in either the project documents or in the collection of data for
performance monitoring. Nevertheless, there was an implicit view that women were the centre and stable base of the
community—reflecting continued social fragmentation in the area even as greater stability began to emerge—and
should therefore be the focus of the development initiative. Although this reflected a rather instrumental and
stereotyped view of gender, it was consistent with the assumptions of the powerful women in the community and not
inconsistent with the counsel of gender planning. In addition, it was responsive to the demography of the local
community, with its continuing high proportion of women-headed households (44% by 2000) and transient men.
In the realm of physical planning, the settlement was designed to offer full services (water borne sewerage, water
inside the house, electricity), a range of social facilities (schools, libraries, community centres, pre-schools, sports
fields, clinic) and access to employment and commercial services in the area through frequent public transport, all of
which assisted women in their daily lives. Careful attention was given to safety in the design of layouts, public spaces
and public buildings. Planners tried to put in place small, local parks that were accessible and could be closely
monitored. Street lighting was developed as a priority. Moreover, planners and architects consulted on design and
were responsive. For instance, while planners favoured the idea of a pre-school overlooking a park, the community
development manager argued that it would make children vulnerable to men who might expose themselves, so the
facility was reoriented. Several pre-school facilities were established (such facilities are not provided by government in
South Africa) and a training programme was set in place to facilitate their operation, although the need to recover
costs has meant that they are under used. No constraints were placed on home working and some 14% of households
run a business (mostly from home) and 60% of these are owned by women (Delca, 2002). Practices in housing have
also benefited women. Formal housing delivered in the area either reflected the gender distribution of households or
exceeded it. Women own title to 50% of the low-income housing and 45% of higher income mortgaged housing (12%
is in joint ownership). The only social housing project in Cato Manor, the Shayamoya Project, was constructed by a
nongovernmental organisation. It specifically targets women and some 62% of households are women headed—well
above the target of 45%. 32
On a similar note, it should be highlighted that the spectacular popularity of shopping malls in the
developing countries is not a facet of commercialization alone, it is about providing the much needed
public space especially to groups like women, elderly and the students. Erkip (2005, 90) notes that ‘It
is the required ‘‘public space’’ by many segments of urban society, including the suppressed groups
such as traditional women, young people and people with an apparent Muslim identity who are
excluded from urban public life (for a thorough discussion of these issues see Erkip, 2003)’. It is often
quoted that “...women are increasingly conquering public space without the need for a male presence
to protect them’’ (Abaza 2001, p. 118). On the other hand, the threatening aspect of this development
for public life is that ‘‘the others’’ might be excluded for the sake of a safer environment for family
use, meaning that malls will become more homogeneous in terms of user groups, which are already
being noted in documented studies from the developing world (for example, the case of Bilkent
Shopping Mall in Ankara, Tukey documented in Tulgay, 2002; see also Erkip, 2003, 2005). Given that
the developing world is marked by great variations in socio-economic status, private control over the
use of public spaces can have severe consequences for the society. The type of potential mobility
offered to women by such public spaces is in reality offered to only women from a certain socioeconomic background, and needs to be understood in this fragmented manner as a product of the
planning process. As Zukin (1995, p. 191) suggests ‘‘...ordinary shopping districts frequented by
ordinary people are important sites for negotiating the street-level practices of urban public culture in
all large cities’’. This holds true for the developing countries where traditional shopping districts and
open markets and ‘bazaars’ provide valuable site for interaction and market to the informal sector
economies, where a major share of the low-income women are employed. The impacts of shopping
malls on the use of such spaces—particularly open public spaces—may reduce the potential of this
negotiation (Erkip 2005). One possible development to combat such an exclusionary future is through
treating streets more than thoroughfare, to design and assign its usage as a prime public space that
people can enjoy and have pride in using (Kunieda and Gauthier 2007 also advocate this sentiment
with regard to urban areas in the developing countries, example quoted in Box 8).
Apart from the mainstream government led planning, immediate results can be achieved through
encouraging public-private partnerships to achieve targeted goals. The case of business improvement
districts (BIDs) should be actively encouraged in the developing countries. This kind of partnership
involves property and business owners of a defined area, whereby they elect to make a collective
contribution to the maintenance, development and marketing/promotion of their commercial districts.
A range of services can be provided through this method including street and sidewalk maintenance,
marketing, parking area for non-motorized transport like rickshaws, providing clean toilets etc. This
kind of service provision has a direct impact on women’s mobility and in the development plan’s
ability to deliver a meeting space for them. For example, in Johannesburg, this model has been
adopted in the Central Business District to install cameras and hire private security in an effort to
make downtown a safer and more attractive place.
33
Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon river restoration (before
and after)
Box 8: Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project,
Seoul In the 1960s, as Korea embarked on rapid modernization, the Cheonggyecheon was entombed beneath a drab, concrete elevated expressway running through the heart of the city. The stunning success of the dismantling of this six‐kilometer highway, and its replacement with the eclaimed river, high quality walkways and public space, holds many lessons for other cities about what it really means to “modernize”. The grand opening of the restored Cheonggyecheon took place on Oct. 1, 2005, accompanied by the World Mayor’s Forum and street festivals around each of its 22 bridges—five of which are for the exclusive use of pedestrians and bicycles. The dismantling of the elevated expressway has been so popular that 84 other elevated roadways have been short‐listed for demolition in coming years. Seoul’s revitalization extends beyond the Cheonggyecheon restoration. Among the most striking urban transportation improvements are the five median busway corridors that became operational in July 2004. More than 80 kilometers of congested streets have been retrofitted with exclusive median bus lanes, providing faster transit services that are safe and comfortable. Source: Fjellstrom, 2005; used in Kunieda and Gauthier 2007. 3.2 Creating safer space Whitzman (2007) highlights that fear of crime has been shown to have a negative impact on economic
livelihoods and physical and emotional well-being by limiting access to education, work, and leisure,
restricting use of public space, and eroding trust of neighbours and strangers (Gordon and Riger, 1989;
Moser, 2004; Pain, 2000; Valentine, 1991). Further, most recent studies of fear of crime recognize that
“gender is the most consistent factor” in explaining who fears crime (Grabosky, 1995, page 2).
However, gender does not affect this fear in a singular fashion. Through reviewing studies on this
theme, Whitzman (2007) suggests that it is not gender per se, but economic and social powerlessness
and exclusion that is the defining factor behind fear of crime, an argument also made by feminist
researchers such as Elizabeth Stanko (1990) and Rachel Pain (2000; 2001). Similarly, the most recent
British Crime Survey suggests that gender alone is not the biggest determinant of whether “quality of
life has been greatly affected by fear of crime”, but that people with low incomes, those who live in
areas with physical deterioration or council housing, and single parents (all social groups in which
women predominate) are most likely to have their lives significantly affected by fear of crime (Crime
Reduction UK, 2005). For developing countries, this is corroborated by slum dwelling, female
informal workers who register fear of crime while going from bus stop to their homes through poorly
lit pathways as one of the greatest deterrent for coming home after dark and accessing evening
markets. Rather than searching for the causes of this ‘fear of crime’ only in the external environment,
Whitzman (2007) posits that this fear has its roots in the existence of physical/sexual abuse
experienced by women in the confines of their homes as well and a corrective measure lies in
increasing women’s mobility to safe ‘counterspaces’ where they can find refuge and mutual support
from peers – including temples, churches, recreational parks, public plazas etc. Consequently, space
(elaborated as ‘social space’ by Listerborn (2001)) becomes the sum of physical space itself,
34
discursive space that influences the (re)making of that space, and the discussions and actions that take
place within that physical space. These facts have dual ramifications for future planning interventions:
(i)
(ii)
4.
Prioritizing ‘Safety’ in Physical Planning: The practice of urban planning in developing
countries need to recognize that given ‘walking’ is the primary mode, it is best suited to align
mixed land use policies with transport to create active spaces where women will not feel
isolated and vulnerable to attack. A concrete imagination is needed around the fact that links to
public transport are important considerations for safety in urban areas where women who do
move are primarily dependent on public transport – the entire cycle of journey from home to
public transport stop, public transport itself, the journey from public transport to the destination
and back needs to be assessed from ‘safety’ point of view. For example, once this realization
sinks in, basic infrastructure like lighting both internally for stations and vehicles, and the
approach to the station will get prioritised.
Designing ‘Access’ to Community Spaces: Through identifying, designing and making ‘safer
spaces’ available to women, development practitioners can indirectly address the issue of
violence on women taking place within their homes. For example (taken from Whitzman 2007),
an Afghan women's group in the Dandenong suburb of Melbourne disseminates information on
services, including violence-prevention services, through halal meat shops, multicultural
television and radio, and mosques. Its weekly swimming group offers women a chance to meet
in an informal setting, and although it is supported by a recreational grant and is not specifically
intended to address violence, discussions on safety issues are generated in the changing rooms
before and after the swim. The swimming sessions might be described as ‘safer space by
stealth’, and are intended to address the discomfort many women feel in discussing violence
issues in more formal surroundings. Planning interventions can thus promote social inclusion of
women through providing mobility of women to a range of social spaces like community health
centers, neighbourhood centers and public events like activities in local parks, festival
arrangements etc.
Globalization The business of globalised services has settled on the international trade scenario and will remain so
for a long time to come. In order to compete in a deregularised, neo-liberal, open-market world trade
set-up, companies need to internalise (on a global scale) a range of specialised competencies which
include asset management, production, organizational and managerial know-how, supplier and
customer networks management and market intelligence (Perera 2007). And a significant and
consistent outcome of globalization has been the feminization of labour, a sudden and withstanding
change affecting the social, cultural, economic and political fabric of the developing societies (Luke
and Munshi 2010). As is evident in Table 1 and 2, the main players at the production level are the
developing countries. Apart from production and manufacturing, global outsourcing is also
increasingly taking place in higher end activities or ‘Knowledge Process Outsourcing’ (KPOs) that
include valuation and investment analysis, market research, consulting, legal and insurance claims
processing, software design, architecture, drafting and filing of patent applications, drug discovery and
other types of R&D activities, chip design and embedded systems, analytics and inventory
management and so forth (Rajan and Srivastava 2007).
35
Table 1. The most active receiving geographies in the globalization of services The Leaders India, China, Canadá, México, South África, Ireland, Russia, The Phillippines The Challengers Brazil, The Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Malaysia, Israel, Singapore, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Chile The Next Tier Bangladesh, Ghana, Korea, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Mauritius and Thailand The hopefuls Argentina, Botswana, Guatemala, Panama, Source: Perera 2007 (updated from WTO/UNCTAD 2005) Table 2. Share and types of processes being outsourced What this development implies is that both low-income and middle class women are in the spate of
globalization and their lives are dramatically being altered by this phenomenon. But rather than being
a win-win situation , it has brought new gendered issues to the forefront. Daily mobility and the
associated hazards have a strong presence in that list of issues. To begin with, let us dwell on the case
of India, one of the major actors in Globalization of services. Out of roughly 548 million women in
India, only 40 million are gainfully employed working women (roughly 9%). However, the working
population of India’s BPO (business process outsourcing) and IT-related industries consists of more
than half women. Given this huge share of women participation in this sector, amendments were made
to the Factories Act, allowing women to work between 10 pm and 6 am, in IT among other sectors.
This was made with clear stipulations that the employer should ensure the safety of women at
workplace and while commuting. A major decision based solely on ‘mobility’ was taken to facilitate
participation of women in the employment scenario carved out of Globalization. This has certainly
redeemed the position of women as contributors and active participants in the Indian urban economy.
However, on the flip side India has witnessed several cases of rape, murder, molestation, thievery
targeted primarily at the women employees who work late night shifts and are transported on private
taxis. Some of the processes at play here are detailed out in box 9.
36
Box 9: Business Process Outsourcing Units (BPOs) and IT firms across India share two key
features in terms of spatial accessibility: i. they are often located on the fringe of cities or suburban townships of major
cities and (ii) are made accessible by private cabs (typically 8 seater vehicles owned and operated by private
transportation companies) and buses hired by the companies. Characterized by late working hours or 24 hours
operating module, these jobs are practically inaccessible for women in lack of these point-to-point pick up cabs offered
by the companies. But given that hiring these private transport companies cost upto 20% of the company’s monthly
budget, the mobility of women will inevitably become the target. This is already evident in light of the recent economic
recession; the most evident adjustment was made in form of cost cutting strategies on transport provisions for the
staff. The CEO of Bangalore-based Infosys quoted that "Transport comprises the most expensive component of overall
cost in the BPO business. We have already restructured our employee transport system to make it more efficient, and
a part of which is also to reduce the costs. However, we have made sure to abide by the law of the land and will
continue to provide transportation"(http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/05bpo-slump-in-it-bpo-biz-spells-troublefor-cab-owners.htm). The existing labour laws do not allow women to commute on their own during late hours, so cab
services will continue for night shifts in most of the companies, while other avenues are being explored for day time
services. For example, top BPOs with operations in Delhi-NCR may do away with day-cab services to ferry their
employees between Delhi and Gurgaon on metro rail services connecting the two cities, to cut operation costs.
Companies like Genpact, EXL Service, Vertex among others are planning to replace the existing system with travel
allowances for employees and facilitation of metro cards along with shuttle services to-from the nearest metro stations.
Another option being explored by these companies is using vehicle-routing optimization software to reduce travel time,
maximise fleet utilization etc. Though these measures are economical, a gender-based needs assessment will reveal a
completely different picture for men and women. This kind of needs assessment before making any policy changes is
still in its infancy and mostly ad-hoc. The brutal murder case of 24-year-old Pratibha Srikanth Murthy in december
2005, who worked at the HP GlobalSoft call center in Bangalore, has exposed the vulnerability and lack of personal
safety of BPO employees who work night shifts. The lack of a good public transport system combined with safety
issues puts women in a very vulnerable position here. Added top this constraint is the fact that women who did not opt
to work night shifts did not stand much chance for promotion in spite of their efficient performance.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), IT Outsourcing (ITO) or Research and Development works is
growing rapidly in the Arab world as well, opening new opportunities for women to participate in the
labour market, for example, Amman (Jordan) is now the hub for Arab-language call centres. But has
the issue of mobility been looked into and considered as a vital infrastructure towards that end?
Apparently not, as is evident from adverts promoting Jordan as a vital center for outsourcing/shared
services (http://www.sabeq-jordan.org/SABEQ_Files/634126961802875632.pdf). Instead of waiting
for women to be abused and rendered unsafe while travelling in nights as warranted by employment in
this sector, a proactive approach for safe and reliable mobility (specially for women employees)
should be built right from the inception stage of such services.
While referring to development, the trend is to quantify in terms of GNP, poverty reduction, reducing
adult illiteracy, reducing infant mortality rate etc. However, the linkage between ‘mobility’ and these
assessed factors is still not undertaken seriously. This issue becomes magnified in light of the
processes initiated by ‘globalization’. Therefore in order to let the benefit of globalization truly
permeate the different strata of the developing societies, it is necessary to analyze the mobility context,
history and culture of the country in question. Constrained mobility seems to affect women at a much
deeper level than men, even in the case of globalization’s ‘emancipatory’ effects.
4.1 Daily mobility as a ‘quantifiable’ factor of progress International commitments such as the Beijing Platform for Action and the Copenhagen Programme of
Action addressed some of the problems arising out of globalization but given that globalization’s
effects are vast and varied, it is not surprising that many of these effects are left completely untouched.
Solutions proposed for women in these documents are largely microeconomic, with particular focus
on enabling poor women to obtain access to credit, presumably to begin small businesses. In January
37
2000, a total of 116 UN members had submitted national action plans to fulfill government
commitments to the Beijing Platform for Action, with majority focusing on education and training,
women in power and decision-making, women and health, and violence against women. Few plans
established comprehensive, time-bound targets for monitoring such progress, and most made no
reference to sources of financing for the actions agreed. “Indicators show that 13 countries - of which
Albania, Burundi, Iraq, Liberia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia and Tanzania are a few - are in the same
shape or worse off today than they were in 1990, and for almost 40 countries the data is insufficient to
say anything, which probably reflects an even worse situation for women,” according to Social Watch,
an NGO watchdog system aimed at monitoring the commitments made by governments at the World
Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen and the Beijing World Conference on Women. The
issue of daily mobility is largely amiss in these discussions.
In capturing the gendered employment effects of Globalization, Seguino and Grown (2006) contend
that theoretically, job access for women can improve their level of well-being and that of the children
they care for—if this provides more income, and if women can find a way to juggle their care
responsibilities. However, the little available evidence on time use suggests that women’s time
burdens have increased with globalization (Floro 1995). Men’s performance of unpaid labour does not
appear to have increased enough to compensate, suggesting a decline in female leisure. Are there
measurable effects that show up in measures of well-being or household bargaining power? We need
to answer this question in order to determine whether economic and trade liberalization provide the
conditions for women to achieve equitable standards of living and power with men over time, even if
women’s incorporation into the labour force in the short term is under unfavorable conditions. Further
what role does mobility play in accessing these ‘new’ employment opportunities? This still remains a
grossly unexplored area.
There are still no clearly established trends that access to paid employment in developing countries has
resulted in sufficient leverage to alter social norms that devalue women. This leads to the question of
whether the conditions under which women are incorporated into the paid economy are adequate to
eventually transform conditions of gender inequality into gender equity. Some studies find that as
women’s access to outside income rises, they are better able to renegotiate the distribution of resources
within the household to the benefit of themselves and their children. The source and stability of that
income appears to play a role in influencing women’s bargaining power. For example, Kabeer’s
(2000) study of Bangladeshi garment workers found that women employed as home workers with
insecure and intermittent earnings were less able to renegotiate their position in patriarchal households
than women with higher and more stable earnings. One study considers these questions for Asian
economies where rapid growth was fuelled by low-cost female labour in a period of otherwise global
economic stagnation (Seguino 2002). A focused study on the role of daily mobility in the lives of
women operating at the lowest strata of production and its inter-linkages with higher and stable
earnings / employment opportunities will allow transport policies to be based on a quantified study of
this relationship. This approach can be used to distinguish if and under which conditions are these
relationships mutually beneficial and what changes are required to better the chances of women
employment and access to higher and stable earnings. This issue is also closely tied with the existence
of informal sector in the developing countries, which is further examined upon in the next section.
38
5.
Governance Issues 5.1 Informal Sector Economy The prevalence of employment in informal sector
is noteworthy in developing countries, comprising
one half to three-quarters of nonagricultural
employment: specifically, 48 per cent in northern
Africa; 51 per cent in Latin America; 65 per cent
in Asia; and 72 per cent in sub- Saharan Africa
(Carr and Chen 2004). It is further reported that if
South Africa is excluded, the area of informal
employment in non-agricultural employment rises
to 78 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, and if
comparable data were available for other countries
in southern Asia including India), the regional
average would likely be much higher. Adding
informal employment in agriculture to this dataset,
as is done in some countries, the proportion of
informal employment increases hugely: from 83
Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]] per cent of non-agricultural employment to 93 per
cent of total employment in India; from 55 to 62 per cent in Mexico; and from 28 to 34 per cent in
South Africa (ibid). The emphasis on this sector of employment derives from the fact that throughout
the developing world, informal employment is generally a larger source of employment for women
than formal employment. Other than in northern Africa, where 43 per cent of women workers are in
informal employment, 60 per cent or more of women workers in the developing world are in informal
employment (outside agriculture). In sub-Saharan Africa, 84 per cent of women non-agricultural
workers are informally employed as compared to 63 per cent of men; and in Latin America the figures
are 58 per cent of women in comparison to 48 per cent of men. In Asia, the proportion is 65 per cent
for both women and men. Needless to state that the informal sector economy comes with a big set of
risks and agendas including insecurity of tenure, no
pension or other kinds of benefits, payments below the
stipulated minimum wages making it hard for the
working poor to carve their way out of poverty. Given
that women are more exposed to these risks than men,
it behoves the research and policy making community
to unearth different ways in which these problems can
be mitigated. Constrained mobility, especially of
women, can reduce women’s economic opportunities
by limiting their choice of work location, their access
to final goods and factor markets, their access to
information relevant to their work and the freedom to
combine jobs in the informal sector. But given the
Informal sector employs a major share of women in traditional focus on labour regulations, skills training, the developing countries, whose access to income is compromised by constrained mobility property rights etc. the issue of mobility has been Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]] 39
obfuscated. In the following boxes, this theme is built upon with a view to promote infrastructure and
services within the transport sector to address mobility constraints in the informal sector. A lack of
insight into the varying context of transport planning in developing countries plays a big role in such
faulty planning. In the developed countries, transport planning by-and-large means providing a
balance between car and public transport, solving congestion and other regulatory features. However
adopting similar transport planning patterns in developing countries, where para-transit and nonmotorised vehicles constitute a major share of the modal split and are often the carriers of informal
economies, and removing non-motorised modes like bicycles and rickshaws will be the biggest
setback on the daily mobility and employment of the billions of poor people employed in the informal
sector. This finding is consistent in all parts of the developing world (Houpin 2009). Since a huge
share of the female workers are employed in the informal sector in the developing countries, transport
projects ignoring the soft and informal modes will directly hit the women workers. This fact is
already reinforced in identifying the constraints to women’s access to profitable small scale
enterprises. Jennings (1994) notes that:
Box 10: Access is further hampered by the spatial constraints placed on women by the
sexual division of labour and by “social customs”. Women are most often confined to the home as the site for
their productive work which limits their access to contacts for markets, raw materials, role models, and social
interaction, and compounds the problems they already face by virtue of having to operate in the informal sector.
As isolated workers they do not share in the benefits of collaborating with others to achieve particular ends. As
home-based workers they have limited contact with the informal “business culture”, the main training ground for
small scale businesses.
By comparison, men working in the informal sector in pursuit of fulfilling their breadwinning role are relieved of
many household tasks and the free mobility that they enjoy facilitates greater access to contacts for markets,
credit and raw materials (Moser 1984, 1989). It also provides them with a forum for meeting, learning from, and
gaining the support of other informal sector workers.
Where zoning legislation separates commercial from residential areas, the mobility problems of women are
reinforced. They are unable to market from their homes and are thus dependent on men to sell their products,
thereby minimizing their control over the profits. Issues of the availability of transport at times suitable to women
(not only at peak hours to facilitate formal sector workers), and the physical safety of women on public transport
also impact on their freedom of movement.
Box 11: The case of myopic focus on car and other motorized vehicle based infrastructure in many
developing countries, thus reducing the mobility (and invariably the quality of life) of those unable to afford
automobiles has been put outside the ‘formal’ debate on transport policies.
To cite an example from India highlighting the link between social justice and transport policy is the plight of
Delhi’s ‘wastepickers’ – informal sector trash collectors that make their living collecting and sorting garbage.
According to Bharati Chaturvedi, Director of Chintan, a community group that advocates for wastepicker rights,
new transport policies in Delhi and other Indian cities have often favored the transportation needs of private
automobile owners over those of the wastepickers.
While often unseen or overlooked, 1 out of every 100 Delhi residents earns a livelihood as a wastepicker. As a
group, these informal garbage men and women collect over half of the city’s waste. But in a rapidly modernizing
India, the wastepickers’ way of life is under constant threat. Mobility is essential for these workers, who typically
use cycle rickshaws to move from house to house and to haul their huge bags of garbage, which can exceed 60
kilos (approximately 130 lbs). But as private cars have begun to dominate Indian roads, the government has
decided to ban bicycles and cycle rickshaws from many city streets. Ostensibly, these measures are designed to
improve traffic flow, but they can be a death sentence for the wastepicker business model: without this
affordable form of transportation, their ability to collect enough trash to make ends meet becomes even more
difficult. According to Bharati, wastepickers caught using their cycle rickshaws in restricted areas can have their
rides confiscated. The rickshaws are then cut in half, in order to permanently take them off the road!
(http://thecityfix.com/car-centric-transport-policy-hurts-indias-informal-sector)
40
Another nuance of this deprivation is illustrated by the employment conditions of women in garment
manufacturing sector in South Asia. The case of Bangladeshi garment workers paints the most
succinct picture of the flip side of this form of economic participation. Bangladesh presently exports
ready-made garments (RMG) to about 30 countries in the world, employing about 1.8 million workers
of which 1.5 million were women (Kabeer 2004). Though a string of problems exist for these women
workers, problems of industrial work and urban living are compounded by the mere fact that there are
not enough affordable housing and transportation facilities for workers on limited wages (Absar 2000).
In her study on the living conditions of women workers in the RMG sector in Bangaldesh, Absar (ibid)
notes that a major problem afflicting women workers in Dhaka is transportation in the city. Thousands
of workers struggle to reach work daily, mostly on foot. A clear demarcation between the travel
behaviour of workers can be seen in the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) versus the non-EPZs, which
is attributable solely to the provision of transport facility in the EPZs. According to Table 3, more
women (69%) walk to work than men (58%) in Non-EPZ factories, whereas workers in EPZ factories
only 7.5% men and women walk to work. Table 3 itself explains the reason for this difference,
showing that 78-80% workers use factory bus in EPZ factories but most Non-EPZ factories have no
factory bus and thus workers walk and/or use public bus. According to Khan (1993), buses are
overcrowded and irregular and rickshaws are time-consuming. Moreover, in Dhaka rickshaws are not
allowed to ply in some major roads where a number of garment factories are located. This also
compels them to walk.
Table 3: Garment Workers Mode of Commuting, 1997 (per centage) Commuting Mode
Non-EPZ
EPZ
Male
Female
Male
Female
57.9
68.9
7.4
7.6
3.7
7.0
3.7
3.3
21.6
15.5
3.7
3.3
Bus/tempo
4.2
2.1
3.7
2.2
Factory Bus
0.5
-
77.8
79.3
Rickshaw
6.3
2.8
-
2.2
3.7
3.7
2.1
Walk to work
Walk and rickshaw
Walk and bus
Other
5.8
Source: Zohir 2000, presented in Absar (2000). Another depiction of the reality faced by garment factory workers is presented in the following box.
Box 12: Garment Factory Workers of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Factory women walk 4–5km each day. Without effort they have formed a line. This is why they are so visible.
They form the silver lining of a road. They walk to save daily commuting costs. For a person having to pay
Tk800 for a room from a wage of Tk700–1,000, it is more than essential to walk. So much walking every day
takes its toll on workers’ health, particularly that of women. The situation is worse at night because of the fear
of being raped. This adds mental stress to physical stress. All the 35 workers interviewed agreed that every
single night, when they leave work, they fear men will stop them on the dark roads and take away their izzat
(virtue). They fear mostly construction workers, who coincidentally are migrants too. Employers should provide
transportation for women workers, at least from the factory to the nearest point of their squatter settlements or
places of accommodation. It would cost less than a woman’s izzat. Regular and secure transport would ensure
that workers turned up on time, that the women would be physically less stressed and could channel their
energy into their work, would reduce sicknesses and absenteeism, particularly in the rainy season, and might
engender a sense of loyalty amongst the women.
Source: Absar 2000 41
A different format of the same industry is home-based garment manufacturing. This sector is also
primarily run by women in South Asia but rather than being employed in factories or export
processing zones, these women run their production units from their home. To illustrate the effect of
variation in mobility levels on the economic outcomes for female-based informal sectors, Kantor
(2002) analyses the case of home-based garment producers in Ahmedabad, India. Though it was
difficult to establish a distinct and significant relationship between the level of daily mobility and
economic outcomes due to a the special type of market structure existent in Ahmedabad, she
concludes that development planners cannot ignore mobility when developing interventions to
improve livelihood outcomes of female producers in this sector. Based on the sector’s market
characteristics, one potentially important intervention typical to many microenterprise development
programmes is to improve the range and quality of markets to which women have access (ibid, 156).
She underscores the importance of assisting producers “in linking with markets in higher value-added
niches within the city, and with garment markets outside the city and state. This will require a
programme with a range of components, including stitching skills training, marketing skills
development and conscious-raising regarding mobility. The latter is necessary because improving
market access is likely to increase the demand for mobility, particularly if producers access these
outlets directly” (ibid). 5.2 Micro Credit Schemes Following the lead from the World Bank, it was recognised during the 1970s that one of the main
reasons why the poor in developing countries failed to benefit from development (the “trickle down”
problem) was that they lacked access to resources and opportunities, thus leading to the formulation of
the “target group” oriented development strategy. It emphasised the promotion of specific target
groups that failed to benefit from development through direct allocation of resources and channelling
of opportunities. However, judged by the current levels of poverty in many of these countries, this new
approach appears to have had only a limited success after more than two decades. Gender based
discrimination, along with constraints attributable to their informal status, is claimed to have restricted
women’s opportunities. As Sethuraman (1998) notes, that though the presence of women in informal
sector in the developing countries is markedly high, current strategies toward women in the informal
sector does not seem to recognise the existence of market imperfections in developing countries,
especially in the area of credit, and accordingly they
have not focussed on easing women’s access to
credit. There is also a growing recognition that credit
and other markets in developing countries are not
friendly or accessible to the poor and illiterate,
particularly to women. As a proactive response to
this state of affairs, the trend has been to address the
constraints which the informal sector and women, in
particular, faced through the advocacy of microcredit
schemes.
Consequently,
multiple
microenterprise credit programmes sprung up in
recent years, which have endeavoured to develop Access to market, training skills and education need “informal” financial mechanisms to reach women in to be made integral part of micro‐credit schemes Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]] a friendlier environment. However, as Omorodion
42
(2007) contends that though much research has been done on the effectiveness of micro-credit
programs in improving the economic situation of women (Fernando, 1997; Schuler et al., 1997;
Mayoux, 1999; Ahmed et al., 2001; Amin et al., 2001; Perry, 2002; Pitt et al., 2003; Izugbara, 2004),
the findings have been inconclusive. For example, Pitt et al. (2003) found that women’s participation
in microcredit programs did increase their empowerment but Perry’s (2002) analysis shows that
although capital was useful to the participants, they were unable to make repayments as they were
forced and cajoled by their spouses to hand over the money meant for repayment to them to reinvest in
their own economic activities, thus questioning the assumption that empowerment is simply a matter
of handing over credit. The issue of daily mobility seeps in this discussion in a twofold manner.
Firstly, similar to the case of informal sector, women lack direct access to market to sell their products
and make networks to access information; secondly as Fernando (1997) has argued, lending
institutions need to implement repayment arrangement that includes outlets located close to market
places and in communities involved in the program. As a result, women would not have to travel long
distances nor seek their husbands’ permission to make such repayments. The women could on market
days simply walk to such outlets to make repayments. Some highlights from review studies are:

Case study of Esan women, Nigeria (Omorodion 2007) – “The lack of financial institutions in rural
areas, which meant traveling long distances to make loan repayments also contributed to the failure
of the micro-credit schemes in Esan communities”;

Cases from the Lawra District of Ghana (Ansoglenang 2006) – This study advocates extending
appropriate technologies to women as part of the credit schemes which includes simple
loading/transportation equipment in order to spare them of the health risk associated with head
porterage.
Further elaborating on ‘access’, few interventions at present are concerned with issues like differential
access to education, training and skills, which is equally important in raising women’s income as
making credit available, thus putting it directly in the ambit of empowering women through microcredit schemes. In his assessment of microcredit schemes in five countries - Nepal, Viet Nam, Egypt,
India, Kenya – Nigam (2000) states that the lasting
impact of credit in reducing the worst
manifestations of poverty can be enhanced when it
is combined with basic social services and key
social development. To that end, access to market,
repayment nodes, and basic education and training
are among the most vital elements.
6.
Disaster and Conflict Situations Natural hazards transform into disaters through a
combination of various destabilising processes. As
graham (2001) notes, ‘Large-scale disasters could
be viewed, in reality, as a myriad of small-scale
concatenated, complex or combined disasters all
related to the original triggering event. The levels
A direct control over business and the revenue being generated depends on being able to physically access the market Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]] 43
of damage and impact will vary between social groups, communities and areas according to their
levels of vulnerability, adaption, and resilience, and the accumulative effects of the magnitude or
intensity of each hazard. An adequate approach to risk reduction must inevitably recognize the hazards
(causal factors) and their territorial circumscription.’ In the previous sections we witnessed the
differentiated capacities exerted by the respective genders in accessing markets, wealth creation,
socialiazation practices, cultural expressions and political participation. Owing to these differentiation,
conflict and disasters impact differently on men and women. Nevertheless, it is often noted that
humanitarian and rehabilitation programmes continue to favour men (Trujillo 2000). Even in the field
of research, the vast majority of the available literature on ‘women and transport’ is found within the
development discourse and the link with disasters/conflicts/emergencies is either absent or
perfunctorily mentioned. Despite a consistent focus on ‘equal access and full participation of women’
by the International Agencies, there remains a gap in translating this focus. This could be happening
simply due to lack of understanding of the importance of ‘mobility’ per se. In order to do justice to
the rehabilation process in the aftermath of disaters or conflicts, one needs to study the relationship
between mobility and the developmental issues. Further, this relationship needs to be guided at the
levels of respective genders and the scale of disasters and conclficts7. A brief review of the
rehabilitation processes highlights the lack of such insight. The International forum for Rural
Transport Development (IFRTD, 2005) notes that the post disaster investment in Honduras after
Hurricane Mitch focused primarily on big or secondary roads and not rural roads, and the transport
sector’s modern rhetoric of issues such as sustainability abd maintennace, gender and t he environment
were strangely absent. Though there is tremendous pressure in the post disaster reconstruction stage to
show case the progress being made, the key challenge lies in reconstructing with change, avoiding
mechanisms for constructing new vulnerabilities or excaberating those that already exist. Citing an
example to this end, IFRTD (2005) notes that ‘prioritising the rehabilitation of rural road networks to
enable small farmers to access markets could potentially discourage post-disaster migration to
vulnerable rural areas and urban slums. By continuing to listen to the needs of the poor in the postdisaster context, the transport sector has the potential to avoid creating new socities with even greater
vulnerability.’
The essential conclusion is that rather than being a linear process of establishing the pre-existing set of
situations, rehabilitation in aftermath of disaster and conflict situations offers a unique opportunity to
correct development/gender-related imbalances. Disaster reduction measures can become an asset in
post-disaster relief situations with regard to the positive impact of targeted policies for community
level advocacy, awareness raising and preparedness education and training. Longer-term measures that
assist to reduce vulnerabilities to hazards, by ensuring the important role of civil society, are therefore
of fundamental importance to operate an effective transition from relief to development (Graham
2001). Tackling the boundaries of women with regard to daily mobility needs to be inbuilt while
conducting the well established stages of community-based risk mapping, contingency planning
7
The issues are different when the disaster or conflict situation entails displacement. As Gururaja (2000) notes
‘Displacement has different consequences for women and girls than for men and boys. There is often a dramatic
increase in the number of women heads of households, and they bear additional responsibilities for meeting the
needs of children and ageing relatives, since the male family members have either joined the warring groups or
been captured. Women face new demands in providing for themselves and their children, with increased
workloads and limited access to and control over the benefits of goods and services.’
44
exercises, and damage and needs assessments in the event of a disaster or crisis. Let us elucidate this
example though the case of infrastructure provision. It has been time and again reported that lack of
basic infrastructure like wells, water points near the housing areas have been productive in reinforcing
the skewed gender relations and the resultant disadvantageous position of women. When such
situations collapse with crisis and disaster, gender relations get more skewed, as elucidated by the case
of Somaliland.
Box 13: Women’s and Girls’ Increased Economic Insecurity after Drought in
Somaliland
In “Somaliland,” according to Famine Early Warning Network Systems, a two-year drought has had severe
ramifications for the economic security of women and girls. Women and girls, largely responsible for water
collection, have to travel further and further as wells and water points dry out. The drought has forced up to
40 per cent of school children in the Togdeer region to drop out, with girls comprising a majority of the
dropouts.
Source: Byrne et. al. (1995, PP. 102).
Conflict situations present very specific cases. Post conflict rehabilitation is prima facie much wider in
scope than a matter of building the infrastructure alone. Lahai (2010) touches upon the depth on this
issue through an examining the nature of women’s participation in on-going and recently-concluded
armed conflicts in 15 countries in Africa. He (ibid, 5) highlights that
It is evident in the literature that the end of conflicts, or the signing of peace accords,
does not represent the end of violence against women. Countries in the data set of
“recently-ended” civil wars share this feature of increasing levels of post-war genderbased violence. In Sierra Leone, for example, after the war the dashing down of the
optimism of former male combatants to reclaim their lost status in society has resulted
in more cases of domestic violence. In Southern Sudan, it has been pointed out that the
violence that existed in pre-war years-such as arranged marriages, battering of women,
and wife inheritance—is closely related to the prevailing culture of violence that
escalated during the war, with multiple cases of rape of women (Lowilla, as cited in,
Bop 2001, p. 36). Right across the African continent, Bop (2001) contends that the loss
of identity, bodily integrity, the distortion of agency, economic losses, loss of
Leadership, losses in education and health, amid the increase in domestic
responsibilities defines the precarious condition of women’s post war lives—hence the
validation of Cockburn’s (2004) argument that violence against women is a gendered
continuum.
But as in the case of disasters, post conflict situations offer women opportunities to change the pre-war
gender stereotypes and subordinations (Lahai 2010, 6). In Chad, as a consequence of the conflict, there
has been a change in the patriarchal social outlook, because “the social disorder brought by the war
transformed gender relations,” and “enabled women to leave the private sphere and participate
extensively in the public domain” (Women’s Commission of the Human Rights League of Chad and
the Editors 1998, pp. 126-207). In Nigeria, Okechukwu Ibeanu found that the Ogoni conflict raised the
profile of Ogoni Women (Ibeanu 2001, p. 207). In Sierra Leone, it was after the conflict that some of
the patriarchal stereotypes (of barrenness, and ancestral curse on women who contest for paramount
chieftaincy elections, especially in the Northern Province) in politics were removed, making it
possible for women to contest alongside men. It was after the genocide in Rwanda that women gained
parity with men in politics. Underlying all these post-conflict development is the fact that women
became mobile and there occurred a dilution of gap between private and public spaces. For
development planning, this fact presents opportunities for facilitating women’s mobility to readdress
45
gender based discrimination in pre-conflict era, and the process should ideally be integrated in the very
fabric of post disaster/conflict recovery. Unlike the following example, where mobility potential is
ear-marked for the hard/technical aspects, one needs to accentuate that gender based interventions is
equally important as providing infrastructure like roads and housing.
Box 14: Challenges to Implementing Gender Mainstreaming in Kosovo
Oxfam was involved in the emergency humanitarian efforts in Kosovo in 1999. Oxfam has made considerable
efforts to mainstream gender and integrate ‘hard’ (technical) and ‘soft’ (social) elements of humanitarian
assistance. This resolve, however, crumbled in the face of high media interest as large sums of money were
diverted to Oxfam to spend fast.
In Kosovo, this initially resulted in gender inequalities in the recruitment and pay of staff: young educated male
Kosovar refugees working with the water engineers were paid, while young educated female Kosovar refugees
were not, an oversight that was later rectified. The stereotypical gender divide in the division of work, however,
remained unchanged, with ‘hard’ programmes such as water engineering being staffed almost exclusively by
men, while ‘soft’ programmes including gender, disability, social development and hygiene promotion, employed
almost exclusively women. The water programme teams each had access to their own new vehicles – highly
desirable resources during the crisis period – whereas social development, gender, hygiene promotion and
disability teams had to share one old, broken-down vehicle.
Source: UN-Habitat 2007
7.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) ‐ Virtual Mobility A discussion on mobility in the present world is rendered incoherent without acknowledging the rapid
development and diffusion of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the past decade.
ICT penetration can be considered one of the most profound changes in people’s lifestyles since
motorization, leading to an era of virtual mobility (Golob, 2001; Kenyon et al., 2002). Interactions
between telecommunications (mobile phone, internet) and physical mobility (travel) can range from
substitution, complementarity, modification to neutrality (Salomon, 1985), and thereby has provided
people with a vast array of activity opportunities for communications in the cyberspace. The
implications of this avenue of mobility are noted in the dramatic changes occurring in the individual
activity-travel behavior, lifestyles and activity-patterns. Similar to the differential access to mobility,
access to virtual mobility is also differentiated. Golob (2001) suggests that the three space-time
constraints proposed by Hägerstrand (1970), the capability constraint, the coupling constraint and the
authority constraint, are effecting the world of ICT and thus the gender divide persists in this arena as
well. To better understand gendered mobility in this ICT era, we have to explicitly consider
relationships between activities, travel and telecommunications as experienced by the respective
genders.
To appreciate these processes of differentiation, first, it is necessary to consider the social realm as a
setting for everyday life with respect to national legislation, cultural conduct and societal practices.
This realm is also geographical – the lived location within the national, regional and local context.
Second, we have the individual practices – the personal histories, visible and invisible power-relations,
structural codes and personal choices form the ever changing mix of choices and their outcomes
resulting in aggregates of organisations, collective arrangements and their inter- and intra-relations.
Thus, micro-level collectively transfigures into macro-level in time and space. With regard to the
developing countries, I describe mobile phone as the predominant technology (device) that constitutes
46
the essence of the “mobile society” for the majority of ordinary people (refer Figure 2-5). In technical
terms, it would be necessary to broaden the “virtual mobility” concept in this section to include access
computers, portable lap-tops and palm devices, but given the dominance of mobile phones in
developing countries (at the end of 2007, more than one out of 4 Africans and one out of 3 Asians
possessed a mobile phone, ITU 2007), this focus is considered sufficient at the moment. To bolster
this argument, ITU further reports that internet use was progressing at a much slower rate, with only
13 out of 100 inhabitants in the developing world accessing the internet, and with fixed internet access
limited and expensive (ITU 2009).
The case of the Village Phone project in rural Bangladesh funded by the Grameen Bank is emblematic
of mobiles for development stories. It was initiated in Bangladesh under the leadership of the Grameen
Bank, and has since been adapted in Uganda, Rwanda, the Philippines, Cambodia, Haiti and
Indonesia, in order to “create a global Village phone movement that provides the world’s rural poor
with access to reliable and affordable telecommunications” (Grameen Foundation,
http://www.villagephonedirect.org). In assessing the literature on women’s use of mobiles, Heatwole
(2009) argues that access is a key concern in the debates: are those women most in need of the mobile
for achieving empowerment (whether defined as furthering economic self-sufficiency or maintaining
viable social ties for communities or families) able to access handsets? Are women most at risk for
domestic abuse or social isolation able to access mobiles? And what is the impact of income and
literacy levels in terms of mobile access? A selection of articles focussing on women’s access and use
of ICTs in Africa reveals that, overall, mobile phones are found by many women to be empowering
both socially and economically (Buskens and Webb 2009). In rural Mozambique the use of mobiles by
women was found to extend and strengthen family ties while pre-paid phone services allowed women
to engage in cost-effective communication for trading goods and services. Women’s appropriation of
the mobile phone surpassed use of other ICTs such as computers and the internet, which, because of
their gender, was not presented to them as a communicative option in telecenters (Macueve et al.
2009). Comfort and dada (2009) reported that in northern Nigeria most women had never used a
landline as they were expensive and thus readily available only to middle to upper class families and
government departments whereas the mobile filled this gap, with its popularity fuelled by the strong
oral culture and low literacy rates (which is why SMS was not widely used). However, affordability
was a key issue: the researchers recommended reform of mobile tariff systems because often poor
signals, services and coverage in some areas meant that connecting calls was precarious; and that
within households there was often disagreement about whether to spend needed money on top-up
credits for the mobile, which husbands preferred or household expenses, which women wanted. In
Zambia the mobile was used effectively by women NGOs for advocacy and change, for instance the
use of SMS to alert members on timely legal proceedings. While stored telephone numbers rendered a
network of social trust, gender-based conflicts in domestic situations over the use of the phone
(reinforcing cultural restrictions of freedoms of expression and networking were reported by many
women (Abraham 2009); this reinforcement of gender socialization and segregation was also
reproduced amongst women entrepreneurs in Kenya (Munyua 2009).
Women fish-mongers and fish processors in Dakar cited mobile as an effective tool to strengthen their
economic self sufficiency as entrepreneurs, increasing their commercial transactions and facilitating
relationships with suppliers and clients (Sane and Traore 2009). Mobiles can also be effectively
47
utilized for furthering the involvement of women in governance issues. In 2007 Kenyan election,
mobiles were given to Community Information Volunteers who made short videos to promote
electoral participation. One woman used it to probe why women were not running for political office
and what Kenyans thought about women as political leaders (Verclas and Mechael 2008). Fahamu, an
African NGO, has also documented the use of mobiles and SMS for dial justice advocacy and
awareness. In one instance, Fahamu collaborated with the Solidarity with African Women’s Rights
coalition to mobilize citizens to register their support for the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of
Women in Africa campaign. Fahamu has also worked with the Rural Women’s Movement in South
Africa to teach women how to use SMS to report on lands rights and violence against women
(www.fahamu.org). These trends indicate that there is a vast opportunity to directly address the issue
of unmet mobility needs through mobile usage. Issues like access to market information, participation
in civic governance, accessing help in case of emergency birth / health related situations / domestic
violence can be organised through mobile usage without making a sharp dent on cultural codes per se.
It is a technology which is widely available and due to decline in the mobile rates, it is becoming
accessible to the lowest strata of population as well. The challenge lies in making this technology a
part and parcel of development programmes aiming to eradicate poverty and empower women.
Figure 2: Mobile cellular subscribers (000s), World, 2001‐2006 Figure 3: Mobile cellular subscribers (000s), Africa, 2001‐2006
Figure 4: 15 African countries with highest penetration, 2006 Figure 5: distribution of telecommunication revenues, World, 2005
Source: ITU world Telecommunication / ICT Indicators (WTI) database.
48
Part III – Analyzing the trends in Developing Countries This part attempts to highlight the dominant trends in travel behaviour of women as captured in
surveys undertaken in different parts of the developing world. The urban and rural trends are presented
separately given the overwhelming difference in the nature of travel behaviour at these two levels.
This section should have been more elaborate and dense but it suffers from a lack of access to
published survey results for developing countries. Additionally, a very short time frame given to
prepare this report was also another handicap. Future work on this theme can build on this section in
collecting and presenting survey results from various parts of the developing world.
3.
Rural Areas Irrespective of the continent, rural travel patterns in developing countries can be divided into three
broad categories: i) domestic travel, including water and firewood collection as well as food
processing trips to grinding mills, ii) agricultural travel, including trips to and from the fields, as well
as supply and marketing trips, and iii) travel for access to services and social purposes, particularly to
health facilities, shops, public markets, church/temple etc. While travel burdens are often shared
between men and women for agricultural travel, women are almost entirely responsible for all
domestic travel, which is by far the most energy and time consuming category in rural areas,
accounting for one third to over two thirds of all travel (Peters 2001). As a result, daily mobility is
consistently gendered in rural areas across all developing countries. To give a glimpse of this
skewness along gender lines, a study (Potgieter 2006) conducted in 2005-2006 in rural South Africa
(SA) is quoted here. This study took place in rural areas of the O.R Tambo District Municipality,
located in the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest provinces of SA. Through a structured questionnaire
survey of 237 respondents, this study once again reinstates that though much focus has been places on
the issue of women and transport in rural Africa, the problems still exist and the format of problems
have not changed much either, at least with reference to the least developed parts of the world. The
relevant details are highlighted here:

Women are primarily responsible for collecting of wood, water and dung as well as performing
other household activities;

99% of women walked and carried firewood on their heads;

55% of women are the primary providers of water for the household;

An average of 66 litres are carried per trip (mostly head loading);

When adult women are sick it is the responsibility of the girls, 92% of respondents indicated that
it was unheard of for boys to collect water, wood and dung;

When boys did do collections it was because there were no girls in the household;

Girls start collecting wood around age 10 – often starting with adult women and eventually doing
it on their own;

The few boys who did collect stopped around the age of 18, but women continue throughout their
lives;

These extra tasks impact on education (for girls) and women contribution to community affairs as
well as their health; and

Women have very little free time – most of their time is spent doing household related activities –
spending between 3½ and 9½ hours travelling.
49
Figure 6: Travelling time to collect firewood / animal dung (per day), Eastern Cape, South Africa Four trips Three trips Less than 30 minutes 30‐60 minutes Two trips 60 to 90 minutes 90‐120 minutes 120 to 150 minutes One trip 150 to 180 minutes 0 50 100 150
(time: in minutes) Figure 7: Travelling time to collect water (per day), Eastern Cape, South Africa Eight trips Six trips Five trips Four trips Less than 30 minutes Three trips 30‐60 minutes 60 to 90 minutes 90‐120 minutes 120 to 150 minutes Two trips One trip 150 to 180 minutes 0 50 100
(time: in minutes) Figure 8: Usage of different modes of transport, Eastern Cape, SA
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Bicycle Car Van Truck Tractor Cattle Wheel Animal‐driven ‐barrow cart 50
Data analysis further revealed that there existed no correlation between the ownership and the
women’s usage of the mode of transport. Women’s mode of travel is walking (only 5,8% made use of
non-motorised forms of transport) with reference to the incidence of transporting goods and headloading. Most women interviewed indicated that they would want to be given carts which the animals
could pull (eases health burden and time burden) Focus groups indicated that women were of the
opinion that the carts would assist the men in their transportation needs. Though the skewed usage of
transport resources are attached to patriarchal ownership and inheritance of asset, even a perfunctory
view of the time spent by rural women on meeting the different mobility needs established the
unfairness towards women in such an allocation of resources.
Table 4: Time distribution on daily mobility and unpaid work for women in rural Flagstaff, South Africa Travelling to the river
35 min.
Travelling from the river
20 min.
Travelling for primary production purposes
9 min.
Travelling to the field
29 min.
Travelling from the field
23 min.
Travelling to the forest
44 min.
Travelling back from the forest
30 min.
Travelling to social activities
38 min.
Travelling to and from bus stops
38 min.
Cultivating crops
95 min.
Collecting firewood
26 min.
Cooking
97 min.
Preparing the fire
26 min.
Preparing food
41 min.
Other household activities
137 min.
Total time spent on daily mobility 266min. 4h 26min.
Total time spent on unpaid work 422min. 7h 02min.
Total time spent on daily mobility and unpaid work 11h 28min. Table 5: Time distribution on daily mobility and unpaid work for women in rural Port St. Johns, South Africa Travelling to the river 33 min. Travelling from the river 26 min. Travelling to and from the field 46 min. Travelling to and from the forest 27 min. Travelling to social activities 137 min. Travelling to the shop 70 min. Cultivating crops 37 min. Tending to animals 20 min. Collecting firewood 10 min. Cooking and preparing food 114 min. Preparing the fire 45 min. Other household activities 211 min. Total time spent on daily mobility 339min. 5h 39min. Total time spent on unpaid work 437min. 7h 17min. Total time spent on daily mobility and unpaid work 12h 56 min. 51
A recap on the experiences of these women while negotiating their daily mobility revealed that
majority of the women used paths to get to the water and wood sources which were sites for potential
robbing, rape and snake bites. Safety was the biggest concern for almost the entire group (94% of the
respondents). This case highlights that the reality of rural Africa cited almost 15 years ago indicating
that 87% of trips still took place locally and on foot (Barwell 1996), still remains unchanged. The fact
that "the most common means of transport in Africa are the legs, heads and backs of African women."
Malmberg-Calvo (1997) holds true as well. Figures quoted in one of the earlier studies covering this
topic (Peters 2001) are also consistent with the above study. Peters (2001) reported that women
accounted for over 65 percent of household time and effort spend on covering their daily mobility
needs. Figures 9 and Table 6 give an overview of the gender differences in labor activities across
Africa reported in 2001 (ibid).
Figure 9: Load Carrying Efforts by Gender in Five Regions of Sub‐Saharan Africa Source: Peters 2001, Peters and Bamberger 1998, (original data in Barwell, Airey and Strandberg, 1993).
Table 6: Women’s Participation in Labour Activities, General African Situation Production Activities % of Work by Women Cash Crop Production Food Production Food Processing Animal Husbandry Marketing Brewing Water Collection Fuel Collection Transport of Crops from Field Household or Community Activities Rearing and Care of Children Cooking Cleaning, Washing, etc. House Building and Repair Communal Farming Social ‐ Dances, Funerals, Weddings, etc. Litigation Activities Political Meetings 30 ‐70 60 ‐90 100 30 ‐50 50 ‐80 90 90 ‐100 80 ‐100 70 ‐90 100 100 100 30 ‐60 50 ‐80 50 10 ‐20 10 ‐20 Source: Riverson and Carapetis, 1991:11, as quoted in Peters 2001
52
4.
Urban Areas Studying travel trends in urban areas is a well informed and debated topic. The entire foundation of
transport modelling and planning is based on urban areas. The most prophesised method to measure
accessibility, namely the Place-based methods look at the spatial separation between key locations like
home or workplaces and other locations (like grocery stores or schools) where required or desired
activities occur (Miller, 2005). However, the challenge to planners in developing countries is that
accessibility varies widely for different segments of the population and to measure accessibility in this
detail, planners need data that disaggregate travel behaviour to the individual’s travel patterns, which
are generally not routinely collected in most developing countries (Srinivasan 2008, Peters 2001).
Establishing a trend in such a scenario is difficult. This section will, therefore, highlight some findings
which have been consistently reported from urban parts of the developing countries, to give a glimpse
into this under-analysed mobility detail. It builds on cases provided by Kunieda and Gauthier (2007),
Peters (2001), Srinivasan (2008), Tanzarn (2008) and Tran & Schlyter (2010). The study by Peters
(2001) included analysis excerpts from Astrop (1996) who presents a study on gendered urban travel
behavior in Pune, India; Pochet at al. (1995) presented research that the French institutions INRETS
and LET carried out in Bamako, Mali; Kudat et al. (1997) provide documentation on a social
assessment done for the World Bank's Turkmenistan Urban Transport Project (in Ashgabat), while
Paul-Majumder and Shefali (1997) prepared a special gender study for the World Bank's Dhaka Urban
Transport Project, for which Shefali (2000) presented another update; Gomez (2000a,b) presented a
study analyzing gender issues for a bus corridor and a bicycle pilot project in Lima, Peru.
What stands out in the urban areas of the developing countries is that mobility becomes an accentuated
problem for low-income population, specially women. For this group of women, the pyramid of daily
mobility comprises walking8 at the base (the primary mode) followed by non-motorised modes (like
rickshaws, para-transit vehicles like tuktuks, becaks, or jeepneys) and at the apex lies overcrowded and
poorly maintained buses. Kunieda and Gauthier (2007) note that when considering all trips (motorized
and non-motorized), women make more trips per day, but the costs in both time and money are higher.
They further highlight that a study on the urban travel behavior characteristics of 13 cities across
different regions showing that, on average, women make more trips than men. Net trip generation by
gender was highest in Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur with roughly 3 trips per day (3.5 in the case of
Tokyo). In Cairo, it was the lowest with fewer than 2 trips per day. Men traveled more than women in
certain stages of life (usually older) and in mainly in cities in Islamic countries. This suggests that
cultural factors, including religion, influence travel behavior. In transport-user surveys in the
Turkmenistan, Ashgabat Urban Transport Project found that the use of various modes of transport
services is highly differentiated by gender. For example, 28% of women walk to work compared to
14% of men; 7% of women commute by car as compared to 20% of men; and 10% of women use
transport provided by the workplace as compared to 20% of men. Women’s waiting times are longer
than men’s and their average total journey time is 10 to 15% greater. Women were also found to have
8
In Asian cities, despite heavy public subsidies for the road-based and rail-based public transit systems, the
urban poor who usually cannot afford the fares, travel by walking, riding bicycles, taking non-motorized modes
or overcrowded buses. In Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, most people walk. For example, in Dakar,
Senegal, based on the 2002 household survey, about 73% of all trips were done on foot. In Latin America, the
majority of urban trips are walking, with public transit following second (Kunieda and Gauthier 2007).
53
lower incomes. Therefore, improvements in public transportation, and particularly, in bus and trolley
services were seen to directly serve the needs of women.
Fig. 10: Number of generated trips per person by age and gender in various world cities. Source: Hyodo et. al. 2005 54
In Figure 11, Peters (2001) provides an overview of mode shares in five different cities for which
detailed, up-to date, sex-disaggregated data was available: Pune, India; Bamako, Mali; Dhakka,
Bangladesh; Ashgabat, Turkmenistan; and Lima, Peru. Overall, the findings are consistent with other
available evidences, highlighting that:

More women than men have no mode of transport available at all and walk.

More women than men depend on public transport.

Women are less likely than men to have access to motorized means of transport.

Women are less likely than men to use bicycles or other intermediate means of transport, but are
more dependent on feeder services and door-to-door transport provision.
Figure 11: Gendered Mode Choice in 5 Southern Cities Other/No travel/Mixed
Private Transport (Motorbike or Car) Employer / School Transport Public Transport Bicycle Walk Source: Compiled by Peters (2001) through reaggregating data provided in order of presentation: Pochet et al. (1995:33, Astrop (1996:227), Paul‐Majumder & Shefali (1997:24), Kudat et al. (1997:170), Gomez (2000a:15) As has been highlighted in this report before, gendered mode shares continue to be most dramatically
demonstrated by the percentage of women confined to walking as their sole means of transport.
Men’s and women’s walking trip mode shares in Dhaka and Lima were roughly the same, while
female walking trip shares were 52% higher than men’s in Pune, 61% higher in Bamako, and a 100%
higher in Ashgabat. A total of 87% of all women in Bamako reported that they had no access to
individual means of transport at all. Only 57% of the men were in the same position (see figure 12).
55
Figure 12: Access to Individual Transport in Bamako, Mali
Car, always available
Car, sometimes available Motorbike, always available Motobike, sometimes available Bicycle, always available Bicyle, sometimes available No mode available Source: Compiled by Peters (2001) using data in Pochet et al. (1995:33) Given these results in mind, it will be interesting to compare them with some recent studies from
developing countries. Srinivasan (2008) analyses travel behavior and location characteristics data for
1001 households in Chengdu, China and 116 households (with a total of 509 persons conducting 1862
trips) for Chennai, India. She studied the low-income population in these two cities and table 7 reveals
that the trends are very similar to the results discussed above. As Table 7 indicates, women in both
cities make a higher percentage of trips by foot than men. Also, women tend to have a lower
proportion of trips involving personal vehicles like bicycles or other motorized modes. Interestingly,
low-income women appear to make a similar proportion of their trips by transit (about 10%). The
difference in bicycle use in Chengdu versus Chennai is striking but not surprising. The facilities for
bicycling in Chennai are very poor. Table 8 suggests that the average travel time and cost
characteristics of women in both cities is very similar though men in Chennai appear to have lower
average costs but spend more time traveling than men in Chengdu. The difference in the number of
trips is perhaps an artifact of the differences in the way the travel diary was collected in the cities. The
survey in Chennai was smaller and hence it was possible to conduct more than one interview to elicit
more detailed responses about daily trips making by the household.
Other studies of household travel in Chengdu and Chennai (Srinivasan, 2004; Srinivasan and Rogers,
2005; Srinivasan, 2006) using these data have suggested that women in central locations with better
accessibility were more likely to both make more trips and travel farther for work trips. In the case of
Chennai, living in a central zone allowed for more parity in the travel costs and times of men and
women. A study in West Africa by Glick (1999) also notes that the cost of transportation to the city
commercial center was key in affecting women’s entry into self-employment. Travel behavior of
residents who are otherwise very similar (in terms of socioeconomic status) is likely to be different if
they live in locations with differing employment and transportation opportunities. Furthermore, the
accessibility of a location from the perspective of a woman is likely to be different than that of a man
in the same household because data suggests that women are less likely to own a vehicle or have a
license to drive it (Table 8).
56
Table 7. Mode Choice by gender for trips in the Chengdu and Chennai sample Male
Walk Bicycle
Transit
Personal vehicle Chengdu
Female
39%
32%
10%
19%
Male 59%
19%
12%
10%
63%
8%
22%
7%
Chennai
Female 83% 1%
14% 2%
Note: In Chengdu males make 35% of walk trips;57% of bicycle trips; 41% of the transit trips; 63% of the personal vehicle trips; and 45% of all trips. In Chennai males make 41% of walk trips; 83% of bicycle trips; 59% of transit trips; 80% of personal vehicle trips; and 48% of all trips. Source: Srinivasan, 2008.
Table 8. Travel characteristics by gender for trips in the Chengdu and Chennai sample Average travel cost (PPP US$)
Average total travel time (minutes) Average number of trips Chengdu
Male
Female
0.29
0.19
21
19
Chennai Male Female 0.36
0.19 26
22 2.7
4.3
2.6
5.4 Source: Srinivasan, 2008
With reference to accessibility afforded to the different genders in the case of Chengdu, Figure 13
indicates the local and regional access as reported by gender varies by location within the city. Darker
shading indicates poorer accessibility in terms of time taken to travel and, in many locations, the
accessibility (both local and regional access) as reported by women was darker (worse) than that of
men. Figure 13 indicates the spatial variation in accessibility related components appears to differ by
gender in Chennai as well. It is interesting to observe from the spatial distributions that there were
many similarities between the Chengdu and Chennai samples. Both surveys resulted in the extraction
of a similar set of accessibility and attitudinal components that varied by gender (and by income). As
revealed in figure 13 and 14, there are differences in the regional and local accessibility trends of those
who live in central locations in both the cities versus those who live in more peripheral locations, and
women and men in the same location report different levels of accessibility.
57
Figure 13. Average Regional and Local Access Components by gender in Chengdu, China Source: Srinivasan, 2008 Figure 14. Average access scores by location and gender in Chennai, India
Source: Srinivasan, 2008 58
Apart from analyzing descriptive data, it is useful to further build on the analysis to check the
connections between various accessibility and attitudinal factors upon mode choice and their
variations by gender. This kind if analysis will be of great significance while designing or improving
upon transport plans in future. Srinivasan (2008) presents mode choice estimated through a discrete
choice model, where accessibility and attitudinal components are tested for significance in predicting
the choice of mode. The results of a discrete binary mode choice between non-motorized and
motorized vehicles (bus or personal vehicle) are shown in Table 9. The significance of gender (in the
case of Chengdu women who work) and at least one measure of access in both models suggest some
interesting trends. First, women do make choices that are significantly different than men. In Chennai
the local accessibility of a location appears to affect the decision to use a motorized mode (worse local
access means that the trip is more likely to be walk/bike). On the other hand, in Chengdu better
regional access drives the choice to choose a motorized mode (worse regional access means that the
trip is by foot/bike). This suggests that certain segments of the city which have poor connectivity to
the rest of the city have fewer choices for employment and that these locations are especially
inequitable for those who do not have access to the more expensive personal or transit modes for their
trips.
Table 9. Binary mode choice of motorized vehicles (bus or personal vehicle) in the Chengdu and Chennai trips sample Chengdu
Chennai Coefficient Significance
Coefficient Significance
Estimate Estimate Time taken on trip (minutes) 0.03
0.00
0.06 0.00
Total cost of trip (local currency) 40
0.99
0.50 0.00
Dummy indicating if trip was made ‐0.6 0.00
by Female NA Dummy indicating if trip was made 0.4 0.09
by person with a job Dummy indicating if trip was made ‐1.56
0.00
NA
by Female with a job Local Access Component 0.1
0.4
‐0.3 0.01
Regional Access Component ‐0.6
0.00
‐0.09 0.4
Constant ‐2.4
0.00
‐4.5 0.00
Adjusted R Square
0.58
0.72
Source: Srinivasan, 2008 A spatial distribution of the logsum is shown in Figures 15 and 16 for Chengdu and Chennai. The
logsum is evaluated as the natural logarithm of the exponentiated utility for non-motorized vehicle
choice (Ben-Akiva and Lerman, 1979). . The spatial distribution of the logsum in the following figures
(here dark indicates poorer non-motorized accessibility) suggests that women have better nonmotorized accessibility than men in many locations in both cities. However, the converse is also true.
The map of motorized (bus or personal vehicles) would be reversed in that men tend to make this
choice more often because the model predicts that it is of higher utility for them to not walk or bike in
many locations.
59
Figure 15. Average logsum of non‐motorised mode choice by location in Chengdu, China Source: Srinivasan, 2008 60
Figure 16. Average logsum access scores for non‐motorized mode choice by location in Chennai, India
Source: Srinivasan, 2008 61
Another recent study covering gendered nuances of daily mobility in urban areas comes from Uganda.
Tanzarn (2008), in her study on Metropolitan Kampala, examines how transportation structures and
systems create, reproduce and sustain systemic differences in material circumstances between women
and men and reinforce women’s exclusion and subordination. An often repeated issue in developing
countries, she notes is that the city was designed to specifically expedite the movement of vehicles and
not pedestrians. Through a questionnaire survey of 225 people (women constituted 52.4 per cent of the
respondents) she highlights that while the majority of the people interviewed do not own any means of
transport, more men than women own cars, boda bodas (motorcycles) and bicycles (Table 9), a
situation that reflects women’s lack of resources. Accordingly, as Table 10 shows, matatus
(minibuses) account for 85 and 49 per cent of women and men’s means of travel, respectively. People,
especially women, use a combination of means daily. Many people walk or use a boda boda in order
to access another means, especially public transport. A matatu is the preferred means of transport for
both women and men because it is perceived to be cheap.
Survey results revealed that the majority of men (90 per cent) and women (61 per cent) preferred
walking due to its ‘zero cost’. The rest of the women who walked did so in lack of any other
alternative. Walking is the only means of transport available to them either because they cannot afford
transport or because they live on the margins of
Table 9. Ownership of Means of Transport by Gender
the city, and transport services are inaccessible.
Source: Tanzarn, 2008
As regards boda bodas, 52 per cent of men who
use them prefer them on account of speed, while
Type
Female Male
for women the key consideration for the
No.
% No. %
majority (42 per cent) is affordability followed
Car
7
5.9 15 14.0
by security (36 per cent), especially at night.
1
0.8 6 5.6
Whereas lower income women use boda boda to Boda boda
6
5.1 11 10.3
ensure personal security while travelling at Bicycle
night, relatively well-off women pay for special None
90
76.3 75 70.1
hire cars. In contrast, men use special hire cars No response
14
11.9 0 0.0
because they are convenient.
Total Tran & Schlyter (2010) analysed the issue of
gender and class effects on urban transport in
Xian, China and Hanoi, Vietnam. This is an
interesting case to refer on the topic of gendered
mobility given that (i) China and Vietnam are
fast-growing transitional economies that are
undergoing rapid urbanization and motorization,
and there have been few, empirical studies
looking at the use of means of transport in the
everyday lives of women and men in these
countries; (ii) both Chinese and Vietnamese
women have one of the highest rates of economic
participation in the world. Their findings
pertaining to gender differences in travel patterns
118
107 Table 10. Most Frequent Means of Travel Source: Tanzarn, 2008
Most frequent means of travel F No.
M
% No. %
Walking 51
43.2 45
42.1
Bicycle 4
3.4 9
8.4
Boda boda
42
35.6 44
41.1
Private car
14
11.9 16
15.0
100
84.7 52
48.6
Special hire car
8
6.8 7
6.5
Companytransport
9
7.6 12
11.2
220
183
Matatu
Total responses
62
highlight that:
a. More men travel to work and for leisure and more women make shopping trips:
This is a “conventional” gender difference, common in most countries but surprisingly high in Hanoi
given Vietnamese women’s high rate of economic participation. This seems to reflect the informal
(and unstable) nature of many women’s jobs. Similarly, in line with global “conventional” trends,
more women than men made shopping trips in both cities.
b. Women walk more and men are more motorized:
Gender difference is more pronounced in Hanoi, with more women relying on non-motorized modes
and more men using motorized transport. In Xian, women walked more than men but men used
bicycles more than women. No gender difference was found in bus, car and motorbike use in Xian. In
Hanoi, there were more women among those who walked and used bicycles, and more men drove
motorbikes. Of the few who drove cars, the group consisted solely of men.
c. More women are motorbike and car passengers:
In both cities, more women than men travelled as passengers, driven by family members. Male car
passenger trips were often for leisure purposes, while women passengers often headed to school. That
women travelled as passengers for trips to go to work (income related) could reflect the fact that
women possess fewer motorbikes than men, as shown in a recent urban transport study of Hanoi
(ALMEC 2007).
d. Women travel shorter distances but walk longer distances
In line with “conventional” travel patterns, women travelled shorter distances than men in both cities,
when all transport modes were included. In both cities, there were more women than men among those
who travelled short distances of less than two kilometers. However, when looking into respective
travel modes, we found that the distance differentiation between men and women depended on
whether the travel modes were non-motorized or motorized. In both cities, women’s walking trips
covered longer distances than men’s, while men’s motorized trips (cars in Xian and motorbikes in
Hanoi) were for longer distances.
f. Women bicycle longer distances in Hanoi
Women’s bicycle trips in Hanoi were
longer than men’s. Most of the men’s trips
were less than five kilometres, while
women’s bicycle trips varied in distance,
with some up to 15 kilometres. In Xian, the
situation is different. Men’s bicycle trips
covered all ranges of distance, including
distances of up to 15 kilometres, while the
majority of women’s bicycle trips were
shorter than five kilometres. However, it
should be noted that the majority of Xian
respondents used electric bicycles, which is
physically less demanding, while all the
An understanding of the trips made by women need to be made part of future urban‐transport planning interventions Source: Ari Yuniasti [[email protected]]
63
bicycles used by respondents in Hanoi were “normal” bicycles.
g. Men travel longer distances with motorbikes
In Hanoi, men’s motorbike trips were longer, with almost 30 per cent being more than 10 kilometres.
The majority of women’s motorbike trips were less than five kilometres. For motorbike trips in Xian,
no clear gender differentiation regarding distance was noted.
h. Men use cars more often and for shorter distances
In Xian, only small gender differences were noted with regard to car use and trip purpose: more
women than men used the car for multi-purpose trips, and somewhat more men than women took the
car to work. On the other hand, men used cars for shorter distance trips than did women; this exhibits a
clear difference for both drivers and passengers. The interviews showed some gender differences in
the purpose and frequency of car use. Although both men and women drove cars to work, men used
cars as their only means of transport, while several women car owners used their car for work, but less
often. Some women car owners used the car to go to work but took the bus when they went to the
gym, to go shopping, or when travelling to the city for pleasure. In Hanoi, very few respondents drove
cars and invariably, those who did drive were men.
64
Part IV – Indicating policy directions 1. Discussion This study attempted to broaden the discussion on ‘women and transport’ to incorporate some
important determinants of women’s mobility in the developing countries. It was based on the
assumption that a sole focus on transport aspect will give a diluted picture of women’s travel behavior,
since women and men’s mobility are structured differently due to differential access to resources,
social norms, issues related safety and the dictates of various social-urban-transport policies and
programmes. Despite efforts by various development organizations, equal access to mobility
opportunities has continued to remain a problem in the developing countries. A consistent finding
which emerges from the developing countries is that there exists a gap between the national gender
framework and inclusion of gender in the transport sector. In other words, as IC NET Ltd. (2004) 9
highlight that a gender-enabling environment, e.g. with reference to gender focal points in their case
studies, did not necessarily result in concrete gender practice across the transport sector. It is
frequently the case that ‘gender’ as a development priority does not percolate down to the lowest level
of implementation hierarchy.
This is happening despite it being accepted that the most sustainable forms of transportation are public
transport, cycling and walking. Women of developing countries are already practicing these
sustainable forms, albeit not out of choice but through inability to access other forms of mobility
resources. However, instead of creating an environment where women increasingly start using private
motorized modes (a noticeable trend in the urban middle-class cosmopolitan culture of developing
countries), future planning interventions can be built to sustain their present forms of mobility through
addressing their problems. In this regard, two inputs need to be advocated for regular update:


Protecting this group’s behavior as users of sustainable mobility patterns from changing in the
future; and
Methods to increase the patronage of public transport, cycling and walking through refining the
conditions around the usage of these modes
The findings of this review report highlight that the present transport policies are not placing an
appropriate level of importance to these issues. Additionally, the policies are regressive in nature.
They do not imbibe the concept of ‘vertical equity with regard to income and social class’ in the
context of developing countries. Stakeholder participation at different local levels in designing and
framing transportation policies also seem to be missing. Women are still not made part of directing
and evaluating the development actions regulating their mobility patterns. In urban areas, the policies
serving auto-mobility is enforced with complete disregard to income levels, participation in informal
sector, predominance of walking and cycling as the major modes etc. which poses a real threat with
the onslaught of incessant urbanization. While low income population in general face the brunt of
unaffordability in accessing public transport services, women are the worst sufferers. Assessing the
mobility needs of low-income women should be made an integral aspect of social/urban/transport
framework. The study also serves to highlight that a socially-just and sustainable public-transportation
9
The study brought together findings of teten case studies from nine countries (China, Laos, Vietnam, Bangladesh, senegal,
Lesotho, South Africa, Uganda and Peru) to comment on the component of integrating gender into world bank financed
transport programs.
65
system would satisfy women’s mobility needs and deliver social justice in terms of eradicating or
modifying the barriers concerning:



Affordability (the extent to which an individual or household has to make financial sacrifices in
other areas to cover the expense of travel);
Availability (route options, timing and frequency of services; location and design of stopping
points); and
Acceptability (other factors that determine the quality of services, e.g. design of bus-shelters,
safety around bus shelters through designing active spaces).
Women are very often characterised by constrained social and economic networks which to a great
extent is a primary, if not singular, product of mobility deficits. Even with the much celebrated stand
of micro credit schemes to give economic independence to low-income women, ‘lack of access to
market’ remains one of the greatest challenges in controlling the gains of various schemes that the
women are involved in. Apart from such structuring issues, one of the greatest fallacies in realising the
aims of the development programs has been adopting a naïve approach to the issue of mobility by
ignoring the existent social and cultural norms. With regard to empowering women through giving
them an opportunity to move, one has to respect that in the developing countries, an additional genderimposed barrier for women is the freedom to move and the ways in which they move. In certain
countries, segregated buses, for example, is the best option to begin with, whereas in other countries, a
separate door will suffice. Given the context, acceptance and prioritization of IMTs, other para-transit
modes, and designing public transport to meet the needs of women is incumbent on planning
practitioners.
Though both genders identify similar barriers associated with transport infrastructure and services, the
prioritization of their needs and corrective measures are different. This has definite implications. If
transport policies, plans and programmes are to be economically and socially efficient, if they are to
benefit women and men equally, then they must be informed by an analysis of women and men’s
travel patterns and their related transport needs. In practical terms, this means institutionalizing the
collection and analysis of sex and gender disaggregated data followed by routine monitoring. Many
aspects of gender are not easily captured through travel surveys alone therefore there is a need to make
a coherent discussion on mobility per se.
Access to education, health services and market should be prioritized on a prima-facie basis in the
rural areas given their considerable impact on women’s ‘quality of life’. The linkage between fertility
rates and female educational level is now well established (e.g. Ainsworth et al. 1996; Scribner 1995),
and evidences suggest that girls’ educational attainment can affect their child-rearing practices and the
health of their children (Kabeer 2005). These connections need to be sewed in the very fabric of
transport planning.
Though much has been written on the connection between land-use and transport, urban/physical
planning remains far from an integrated whole to serve the concerns of women. Looking at the urbantransport development in many developing countries, one cannot deny the fact that men have been the
primary unit around which all planning and designing efforts have been concentrated. For example,
wide roads with bare minimum or no pedestrian facilities is the existing norm in many cities. A blatant
disregard of para-transit, non-motorized modes and an almost religious fervor around ‘car’ is either a
conscious denial of women’s needs or an astonishing ignorance of the planning profession. A
66
plausible reason for this state of affairs is that the existing psyche in many developing countries
connects ‘car’ to modernity and being progressive. This association needs to be broken.
This could be initiated by inserting more women in the field of urban/transport planning to bring forth
women’s concerns, and the benefits which can be accrued by incorporating these concerns in
mainstream development process. Majority of the building, planning and infrastructure sector is either
heavily or totally led by men in both developing and developed countries (for example even in
Sweden, where gender equality is an established and fiercely chased goal, 97% of the leaders in this
sector are men). Greed (1994) says that women planners have a key role to play as philosopher queens
who produce alternative visions of the city. Similarily Booth (1996) points out, a critical mass of
women is needed to effect change since organizations and professions often have cultures that create
invisible barriers that ultimately maintain the status quo.
In the 1970s, the World Bank under McNamara promoted multi-sectoral projects linked to the delivery
of basic needs in developing countries but by the 1980s, this emphasis was displaced by the urban
management approach, on the grounds that projects were fragmented and did little to address the
dysfunctional management of cities (Devas, 1993). Yet joint-projects and Integrated Area
Development (IAD) remain important for facilitating gendered mobility. Within the field of housing
and upgrading, attention to creating ‘whole’ environments, the use of participatory approaches, and the
growing attention to community development and poverty alleviation, has meant that projects allow
for a broadening of the sectoral base to include social and economic development. Examples include
Rio de Janiero’s Favela-Barrio upgrading project (Pamuk and Cavilieri, 1998; Riley et al., 2001) and
DFID funded slum improvement projects in India (Amis, 2001). Odendaal et al. (2002) argue that UNHabitat’s emphasis on community based planning and Local Agenda 21’s focus on sustainable
communities reinforced new forms of IAD. The case of Cato Manor does suggest that IAD—and
specifically projects run through a dedicated unit—provides an interesting and inviting space for
developing more nuanced approaches to gender aware planning. Physical planning thus remains an
open ground for innovative strategies to implement the goal of gender equity.
Zooming down on the transport dimension, one needs to acknowledge that this field is highly charged
to make significant changes in women’s life. But it would be unwise to broach upon it through an
attack on any established culture and the concomitant prescriptions around women’s movement.
Incremental and thoughtful measures can eventually empower women through their newly found
mobility. The case of Bangladesh illustrates this point: two decades ago, it was practically impossible
to imagine women sharing public transportation with men since it was a taboo. But now it is an
everyday event in the streets of Dhaka (Absar 2000). While this happened due to the unprecedented
participation of women in the garment manufacturing sector and the associated need to move from the
private to the public sphere, the existence of buses to ease this movement brought women out in public
sharing the same space (of a bus) and thereby making a strong dent in the extreme segregation
between men’s and women’s domain. Improvements in public transportation, non-motorized modes
and provision of IMTs have the potential to dilute such segregations and eventually help the cause of
women empowerment. But it seems that the understanding of this fact is extremely limited and
operational within the domains of research studies and development organizations alone. Thousands of
case studies and a general overview of the development process in developing countries highlight that
mainstream planning still remains blatantly ignorant of this connection. Whether it intentionally
67
chooses to do so or is simply bogged down under bureaucracy to cater to any new creative ways of
thinking demands further inquiry.
2. Policy Directions A combined effort of urban-transport-social planning has the potential to address myriad imbalances
present in the developing countries. Though these interventions differ at urban and rural level, the
essential requirements of connectivity, affordability, security and ability to access important domains
like education, health and market remain the same. Through right interventions, issues like security
and crime, poverty (exacerbated by inaccessibility to employment centers, markets etc.) and the aim of
empowering women through providing them ‘presence’ can be eventually achieved. This section aims
to outline some policy directions. These directions provide the framework which should be further
elaborated for different contextual settings.
As a most basic policy recommendation, the study suggests that the understanding of transport needs
in isolation should be replaced by developing an agenda on ‘mobility needs’ and ‘gaps’. A mobility
policy, including inputs from social-urban-transport planning arenas, would be designed to address the
distribution of existing and potential mobility resources within the population. It will also serve to
understand the ways in which mobility could be networked to reduce environmental, economic and
social costs. Monitoring should be made an essential part of such a policy and both potential as well as
actual movement and their controlling factors should be assessed. This might be achieved through a
representative set of indicators, subject to a regular updating process.
The findings from this review study reveals that the agenda of integrating mobility needs of different
sub-groups can be achieved through the following policy-interventions and strategies:
1. Refinement of the methods for travel-related data collection and utilization

Lack of regular data collection is frequently reported as an issue in developing countries. But
apart from simple data collection, data needs to be segregated at the level of gender, activities
and time-use. Friberg (2006) reinstates this in the area of physical planning that the
perspective of everyday life can be an important planning tool. Time diaries can be used to
identify this perspective in capturing the opportunities and constraints for various activities in
different neighbourhoods, making visible the lives of men and women (Aquist 2006). The
transport planning authorities need to be sensitized to take a more need-oriented approach.
This should entail a recognition of the existence of distinct needs by the different socioeconomic communities at the data collection, diagnostic and design stages;

The ‘travel behaviour surveys’ should disaggregate the sample based on gender (and other
socio economic parameters like age, income, education, housing tenure, location etc.) to
derive a better picture of the sub-groups (further discussion to be found in Mashiri et al. 2001,
2006). Gender classification, in particular, will reveal how time/space-resource distribution is
taking place within this group.

Mobility-gap analyses should form an inevitable part of travel behaviour surveys. An
explanation of the gap figures, for example in terms of average daily trips generated by
68
different types of households, will shed light on the distribution of mobility opportunities
among the respective genders.

There also exists a need to link the ‘soft’ or qualitative information to the ‘hard’ data
information. This can aid in developing a model that corresponds much more to ‘everyday
transport functioning’ than the much-used classical, techno-economical approach to transport
model designing.

Falling in sync with the findings of this review report, Barwell (1996) lists five factors
particularly relevant for determining the actual extent of the female transport burden in rural
areas:
— Number of female adults in the household;
— Number of children, particularly daughters in the household;
— Distance to Sources of Water and Firewood;
— Food staple and preparation requirements – relating primarily to travel to and from
grinding mills;
— Availability of intermediate forms of transport for domestic tasks which are actively
used by women.
A simple start would be to draw a feasibility study based on the presence of these factors and the
interventions which will be best suited for the case area. Additionally, programs can be built to target
specific goals and ways to target potential mobility with reference to those goals can then be sorted
out. For example, maternal mortality indicators have received much attention of late as the deadline of
2015 for the Millennium Development Goals grows nearer. Maternal mortality is a good indicator for
demonstrating the efficiency of an entire health system, and availability of transport, availability of
medical supplies, presence of trained health staff and access to health is a major factor affecting
maternal mortality rates. Thus programs aiming at decreasing maternal mortality should have a detail
analysis of mobility component as well. In areas where this access is problematic, complementary
programs to address this issue specifically should be introduced, either through training the nurses to
ride motorbikes, providing support for owning a community cart etc. The broad aim of building
capacity of the public health authorities to promote equitable access to primary health care services
needs to be broken down into workable components, based strictly on the contextual realities.
Given such benchmarking, it will become easy to assess the specific kinds of alterations needed in the
mobility systems to adapt towards gendered needs ( for example, usage of mobile phones to substitute
the missed trips and access information). This applies at both rural and urban levels. Studies can
employ methods like focus groups / questionnaire surveys / measuring actual behavioural response to
different measures (for example, concessionary bus cards, channelizing feeder services, a change in
the bus frequency, assistance in getting mobile phones as part of the micro-credit schemes etc.), and
supplement this information by stated preference surveys to understand the adaptive preferences to
different options. Studies conducted on these lines(e.g. Gärling et al., 2000, Loukopoulos et al., 2004
and Loukopoulos et al., 2005) have found that discretionary trips have a greater number of adaptation
alternatives available from which to choose than non-discretionary work trips. This is exactly the case
with women in developing countries where majority of their trips cater to discretionary purposes of
combining various household/social/shopping related trips. Therefore, it is advisable that future
research studies measure the costs and effectiveness of specific change alternatives for various trip
purposes. Such results can give insights into the specifics needed for designing transport interventions
for women to lessen their time and resource poverty.
69
2. Immersion of the concept of ‘equity’ within the transport planning agenda

Design of public transport fare policies has to be refined to include the concept of
equity with regard to income and social class;

Transport policies should be streamlined to reflect on both group-oriented and locationoriented specifics while designing services and fare policies;

Meeting the mobility needs of the low-income population should be incorporated as an
essential service of the welfare policies;

The special needs of women in terms of their trip-chaining characteristics, travelling with
young children, making trips in off-peak hours and such characteristics should be recognized
both in infrastructure design and in traffic management. Incorporating details like reserved
seats, increasing bus-frequency during off-peak hours, including both motorized and nonmotorized para-transit modes like auto-rickshaws and rickshaws in mainstream transport
planning will ensure the flexibility desired by women in terms of both routing and scheduling;

The transport authorities can develop schemes like targeted fare experiments. The (major)
variations in passengers’ price sensitivity, between different groups and between different
journeys should be recognized and made part of fare designing policies.
vertical
3. Articulation and promotion of public transport as the primary transport mode

If the government makes a conscious recognition of the multiplicity of modes in urban areas
and uses the opportunity to regulate and diversify competition, it will most likely decrease
costs and increase supply to poor people, specially women;

Provision of minimum availability standards for public transport services, ensuring safety
while plying on the public transport systems in evenings, supplemented where appropriate by
feeder services like rickshaws, can be another effective approach to address the issue of
inequitable distribution of mobility opportunities;

Redesigning of road network and traffic management to allocate bus priority lanes and
segregated tracks for cycles, non-motorized modes and pedestrains will not only make all
transport modes operate in optimal conditions, it will also greatly reduce traffic accidents (for
further discussion, refer Tiwari 2000, 1999; Tiwari et al. 1998a,b).
Segregated lanes for the various forms of modes operating in the developing world is the basic step needed towards preventing traffic accidents and efficient traffic management Source: Author, New Delhi, India. 70
4. Critical review of allocation / location policies (slum relocation policies, setting of satellite
townships, low-income group (LIG) housing location)

Location policies including slum relocation policies, setting of satellite townships, low-income
group (LIG) housing location etc. need to be revaluated based on principles like the EANO
(Equal Advantage for Non-Ownership) principle. This principle states that every part of every
region should be developed and organized so that the advantages of not owning a car are at
least equal to the advantages of owning a car (for further details, refer Gilbert 2000).

Methodologies similar to the 3-R method, proposed by The Swedish Association of Local
Authorities and Regions, should be explored and adopted depending which methods suits best
for the context in question. The 3-R method has been developed using the key words
Representation—Resources—Reality. It scrutinizes how women and men are treated in
different communities by examining how the municipality allocates its resources and whether
the allocation promotes women’s and men’s interests. Overall, it analyses the gendered norms
and values that influence different activities. Experiences in other political and planning arena
suggest that increasing women’s representation in comprehensive planning processes may
have significant impact on the public agenda. The 3-R method illustrates the value of wellconducted statistical surveys with gender as a main category. Such surveys can reveal
important gender differences in women’s and men’s daily lives, whether in travel habits,
consumption patterns, or the locations of their workplaces. Similarly, Caroline Moser's
‘introductory roadmap’ to urban violence and insecurity (2004) can be adopted to study the
different structures related to mobility at local, national, and international levels to identify
constraints and resources.

The negotiation between a self-image of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ based on motorized modes
needs to be broken down in the developing societies. To a great extent, this can be ensured
through urban regeneration initiatives to improve access to jobs, diverse leisure facilities and
other essential services without any need for private motorized modes.
5. More focussed research endeavours to address the ‘societal’ postulates of sustainable
mobility

The much advocated ‘social inclusion audits’ of transport delivery plans in the UK can be
modified and adopted in the developing context as well. Such audits can aid in formulating
programmes to ensure that adequate levels of funding are allocated to transport modes used by
low-income sections of the population (mainstream public-transport, para-transit, IMTs and
non-motorized modes like walking and cycling) (refer Hamilton and Jenkins 2000). Further,
inserting gender auditing will aid in initiating the process of integrating gender into transport
policy. A basic mapping could include the following inputs:
—
—
—
Establishing institutional linkages between a country’s transport, gender and urban
planning policies;
Following the hierarchy from goal formulation to the level of actual approved projects
and their implementation;
Inserting an assessment of mobility in all development programs aiming to reduce
poverty and gender empowerment;
71
To facilitate this understanding, it will be useful to begin with analyzing the gender audit template
commissioned by The UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). This
checklist or similar checklist is useful as a tool for benchmarking, evaluating and monitoring the
insertion of gender component in transport planning. The UK gender audit checklist was designed to
be utilized both as a management tool or a community tool. As a management tool, the gender audit
checklist assists in (Hamilton, K. et al., 1999)
—
assessing the organization’s performance in meeting the needs of women,
—
identifying priorities for improvement,
—
measuring progress towards gender-based targets.
As a community tool, the gender audit checklist –
—
assesses how well a local transport provider or local authority meets women’s
transport needs,
—
identifies priorities for campaigning, lobbying and negotiations,
—
measures the progress of operators and local authorities towards gender-based targets.
Box 15: Basic gender and urban transport checklist 1. Has the urban transport program or project identified male and female participants, clients and stakeholders? 2. Has baseline data been collected and analyzed on gender relations, roles and identities within the urban environment and the use of transport? 3. Has the urban transport program or project taken into consideration the analysis of gender relations, roles and identities and introduced a component or transport measure to address a gender issue? 4. Has the urban transport program or project developed an indicator that measures gender specific outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of the component or measure designed to address the above‐mentioned gender issue? 5. Has transportation planning been based on local conditions and specific and local needs of men, women, youth, elderly and the disabled? Have statistics and situations in developed countries been referenced and adapted to reflect the needs and resources in developing countries? 6. Have jobs and social services been brought closer to men and women by developing accessible land use patterns 7. Has the issue of personal mobility and access of non‐drivers, of which a majority are women and the elderly, been Source: Kunieda and Gauthier (2007)
thought through? Have policy, planning or investment practices that favour automobile travel over other modes or lead to automobile dependency been avoided? 8. Have the implications of policies and projects that degrade pedestrian and cycling conditions, such as new highways that divide existing communities or eliminate walkways been considered. Have measures been implemented to control vehicle traffic volumes and speeds, particularly in urban neighbourhoods? 9. Has the participation of various stakeholders in the transportation planning and decision making been facilitated? 10. Has comparative advantage been given to traditionally socially and transport disadvantaged by applying full‐cost pricing to automobile travel, road pricing, parking pricing and fuel taxes and distance‐based charges? 11. Provide transportation consultation and information on transportation choices available. 12. Have you looked at the supply of females into the transportation field? Has gender been integrated in engineering education and measures put in place to groom women’s leadership in transport planning?

‘Affordability index’ to assess the share of expenditure meted out in meeting the mobility
needs of a household as a percentage of its income could be developed as a useful indicator.
The index, computed for various income groups, could provide evidence if the proportion of
income being spent on public-transport fares is reasonable, high or onerous. The transport
authorities can derive a useful basis for comparison through studies based on such
affordability indices.

There is evidently also a need for specifying the kind of data and calculations (for developing
specific measures, targets and indicators) needed to convert the target of ‘equity and social
justice’ into practically achievable and reviewable/revisable goals. Systems to establish
networks to share these new approaches need to be prioritised.
72

Indicators to assess the actual and potential mobility can include direct observational
references and criteria like socio-economic factors, physical separation of activity spaces,
preferences, roles, lifestyles, and activity patterns etc. disaggregated at various levels of the
society. Such assessments can be made an integral part of feedback systems benefiting a wide
range of institutional/economic/urban/transport/environmental and social policies.
6. Requisites of mobility to be inbuilt in disaster and conflict rehabilitation processes
Another area of intervention is the special case of disaster and emergency situations. There remains a
lot to learn from the well established protocols for such situations by International Organizations like
the World Health organization (WHO), where logistics and supply chain systems have been
established to enhance the delivery of medicines, equipment and relief services to vulnerable
communities. The issue of mobility should also be built as a systematic component in the
reconstruction / rehabilitation operations from the start. Apart from establishing these routines, to
merely supplement omitted parts of the planning process is not at all the same as rewriting the subject
by using new concepts and introducing new categories of analysis such the nexus between gender and
mobility. One prerequisite for integrating women’s experiences is that women become active subjects
in planning. This in turn means that knowledge is collected directly from women who are affected by
planning through an ongoing process (Forester, 1989).
In terms of physical designing, these situations provide an opportunity for correcting the ‘accessibility
issues’ existent in the past, for example, location of wells and hand-pumps, building access to market,
assisting in making a framework for public transport supply through providing technical and financial
analysis of the transport component through involvement of both genders. As Graham (2001:7) notes,
“To respond to the changes in the external environment, it is essential to understand: (i) The specific
roles and responsibilities of men and women, (ii) their main constraints and needs, and (iii) their
ability to carry out activities under emergency situations (heightened urgency and activity) and early
rehabilitation.” If this insight in built in right from the start of post disaster/crisis recovery, then
mobility parameter will be inserted from the inception rather than being an adhoc addendum on the
onslaught of problems at later stages. The following elements should be incorporated right from the
beginning of the rehabilitation process:




Obtaining sex-disaggregate data with reference to access to basic services10;
Though much work has been done to prioritise ‘access to health services’ in the rural areas, post
disaster management processes need to directly address the theme of ‘access in emergency’ and
develop tools that will enable transport professionals to include holistic health impact assessments
and mitigation measures in the planning, design and implementation of transport interventions.
Integrating the placement of infrastructure related to water, sanitation, fuel and waste
management in the housing rehabilitation plans. Most importantly these infrastructures should be
placed within walking distance of the households;
Creating a meeting space in form of a community center which is earmarked for women, and
placed within walking distance of the planned housing.
10
This is with particular reference to the advocacy (Graham 2001, 7) that ‘in many ‘traditional societies’, it is
advisable that initially both women and men participate through their societal defined roles, as this will allow
both to feel empowered through their own cultural standards.
74
In recapitulating mobility, sustainability and beyond, Gudmundsson et al. (2005) advocates to cross
the ‘methodological myopia’11 surrounding the comprehension of mobility, to broaden this discussion
through exploring the ‘lived world’ of mobility, how it works and the possible interventions required.
Most importantly, strategies can never be complete, they must go on being reaffirmed and revised
(Newman 2006). This study has explored related ideas through the context of gendered mobility in the
developing countries and furthers a hope that we are able to overcome methodological myopias and
become effective agents of change for a sustainable future.
3. Limitations of this review report The author would have liked to have more expansive discussions on two equally important themes:
travel choices of slum residents (for initiating a structured discussion on the topic, refer Salon and
Gulyan 2010) and the plague of traffic accidents afflicting developing countries (Short and PinetPeralta 2010 provide a good starting point). Since this review report was prepared in a time span of
two months and it was more concerned with highlighting the topics rarely picked up in mainstream
transport discussions, a more detail accounting of slum residents and traffic accidents was rendered
difficult. However, these two issues are important and should be considered in future discussions
around gendered mobility.
11
Methodological myopia, the tendency to frame all policy issues within a narrow cost-benefit or exchange
value perspective, has primarily dominated the comprehension and refinement of sustainable mobility. Martens
(2005) elucidates the dominance and critique of methodological myopia by commenting on the traditional
transport modelling approach and cost-benefit analysis:
‘Both transport modelling and cost-benefit analysis is driven by distributive principles that serve the
highly mobile groups, most notably car users, at the expense of the weaker groups in society. Transport
modelling is implicitly based on the distributive principle of demand. By basing forecasts of future travel
demand on current travel patterns, transport models are reproducing the current imbalances in transport
provision between population groups. The result is that transport models tend to generate suggestions for
transport improvements that benefit highly mobile population groups at the expense of the mobility-poor.
Given the importance of mobility and accessibility in contemporary society for all population groups, the
paper suggests to base transport modelling on the distributive principle of need rather than demand. This
would turn transport modelling into a tool to secure a minimal level of transport service for all population
groups.’
75
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LINKS
BEN Namibia - http://www.benbikes.org.za/namibia/
BEN South Africa - http://www.benbikes.org.za/
Bicycles for Humanity - http://www.bicycles-for-humanity.org/
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CCE - http://www.centrecycling.com/
FABIO - http://www.bspw.org/fabio.html
Gender and Disaster Sourcebook:
http://www.gdnonline.org/sourcebook/chapt/doc_view.php?id=2&docid=58
Gender, Transport & Decision-making: A Kyoto Challenge Perspective:
www.ecoplan.org/kyoto/challenge/gender.htm
ITDP - http://www.itdp.org
IFRTD – Rural Transport: http://www.transporterural.org/en/tagresults.php?tag=002
Multi Modal Public Transportation:
http://www.mmpt.org/2008/08/20/considering-women-trips-in-transport-planning/ Practical Action - http://www.itdg.org
Transport Results Measurement World Bank web page:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/0,,menuPK:3371
22~pagePK:149018~piPK:149093~theSitePK:337116,00.html
Transport Results Measurement World Bank web page:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/0,,menuPK:337122~pa
gePK:149018~piPK:149093~theSitePK:337116,00.html
United Nations Development Programme. Millennium Development
http://www.undp.org/mdg/abcs.html
Goals and Targets:
Village Bicycle Project - http://www.pcei.org/vbp/
World Bank, Gender and Transport Resource Guide:
http://www4.worldbank.org/afr/ssatp/Resources/HTML/Gender-RG/module1/index-p1.html
World Bank. Social Analysis Sourcebook: http://www.worldbank.org/socialanalysissourcebook/
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