You’ve heard of the gender pay gap, but have you heard of the gender commuting gap?

The gender commuting gap is the difference between the time men and women commute to work. It has a very similar pattern to the gender wage gap: very similar for both genders until the average age of first-time mothers, then it has a sudden divergence.

Note the timings of dates on this graph too - until 2018, just before the pandemic.

Now, obviously this is not to say that lower earnings are caused by a willingness for a shorter commute.

But there is data to show that there is a willingness for a shorter commute, and that women are more inclined to leave a job if the commute increases:

So what?

On Monday the UK Parliament released the research paper ‘Women and the UK economy’. This looked at women’s participation in business and the labour market and found that:

???????37.4% of women in employment were working part-time at the end of 2023, down from 42% in 2018.

???????This is due to strong growth in full-time employment among women in the last decade. In the last ten years women working full-time has increased quickly, with a sharper increase during the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the report has not gathered data on causation for the sharp increase to full-time employment during the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s definitely possible that cutting commuting time with remote working has freed up working hours.

And we know that increasing commuting time makes it likely that women will decide to leave their job…

??????????So, how will return to office mandates impact female workforce participation?

???????? And how will these impact the men and women, who while they may return to the office from necessity, will take a hit to their wellbeing and happiness?

I appreciate that companies will choose the working practices that they believe will best benefit their businesses, but this will clearly have an impact on the diversity of their workforce.

On International Women’s Day, I would like to see the CEOs who are mandating back to office policies acknowledge the (possibly unintended) consequences of their decisions. That would at least be a start.

Links to research:

‘The commuting gap: women are more likely than men to leave their job over a long commute’ from the Office of National Statistics:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/thecommutinggapwomenaremorelikelythanmentoleavetheirjoboveralongcommute/2019-09-04

‘Women and the UK economy’ research paper by UK Government:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06838/