Travel behavior of working mothers in Tokyo metropolitan area,
particularly addressing those with small children and theirresidential areas
Takahiro Ishigami1, Noriyuki Izumi1, Shinichi Hirata1, Nobuaki Ohmori2, Ayako Taniguchi3
1

The Institute of Behavioral Sciences, 2-9 Ichigayahonmura-cho, Shinjyuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0845, Japan
Tel.: +81-3-3268-9911 / Fax: +81-3-5229-8081 – E-mail: tishigami@ibs.or.jp (Corresponding author);
nizumi@ibs.or.jp; shirata@ibs.or.jp
2

Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bldg. 14 in School of Engineering 7-3-1
Hongo, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
Tel.: +81-3-5841-6235 / Fax: +81-3-5841-8257 – E-mail: nobuaki@ut.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
3

Department of Risk Engineering, Faculty of Systems & Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai,
Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8577, Japan
Tel.: +81-29-853-5754 – E-mail: taniguchi@risk.tsukuba.ac.jp

ABSTRACTIn Japan, although the women’s employment rate has improved, child-rearing mothers’ burdens remain heavy. A
preschooler would have to be attended by an adult, whose physical burden would certainly increase. Those physicalburdens might be reduced through policy measures to improve transportation systems or the built environment. This study
was undertaken to ascertain how different the travel behaviors of working mothers of nuclear families in Tokyo
metropolitan area are from other attributes, especially the actual conditions of taking their children to day-care on the way
to work. The characteristics were clarified by comparing 20–39-year-old employed women with preschoolers and womenwith different household compositions and resident area attributes. The study uses results of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area
Person-Trip Survey, conducted in 2008. Looking at households with children, households with children under 5 show large
numbers of daily trips that aimed to drop off and pick up. It also shows high portions of on-foot and public transportation,and long daily travel time. From the point of view of the time required from home to workplace, there was a timedifference of about 10–20 min depending on whether there was day-care related travel while commuting from home to theworkplace. Particularly, results show that women living in the suburbs and working in central Tokyo, took a train forcommuting after taking their children to day-care by bike or on foot. Therefore, they spent as many as 70–80 min, on
average, going from home to work.
KEYWORDS: Travel behavior; Working mother.

INTRODUCTION
The aim of this study is to clarify the actual condition of working mothers’ travel behavior in the Tokyo
metropolitan area the presence or absence of preschooler and regional features point of view.
Creating a social environment that is friendly to women, which enables them to work while child rearing, isan important policy issue in Japan. This is because the declining birth rate and an aging population which is
causing a decline in force population, could be supplemented by increasing women’s employment rate.
According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, force population has been
gradually declining every year. There were around 68 million in 2000; however, the number had decreased toaround 66 million in 2012 (1). It can be estimated that force population would continually decrease in the
future, based on the population projection that population between age of 15~65 is going to decrease from
8.2 million in 2010, to 6.8 million in 2013 (2). The employment rate of 30–34-year-old women increased from
50% in 1990 to 64% in 2010 (1). However, 25% of employed women aged 30–34 are non-regularly employed(1). The women’s employment rate has increased during the past twenty years not only because of anincreased percentage of unmarried working women, but mainly because of the increased percentage of
employed married women.

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Although the women’s employment rate has improved, the fact that mothers’ heavy burdens remain,caused by child-rearing, has been indicated. The burden of mothers with children under six (preschooler) is
specifically regarded as a problem. The increasing pattern of residing in nuclear families has made it difficult formothers to return to work after child-rearing leave. Day-care centers for children (including preschool andkindergarten) are invariably too few, so households have difficulty arranging for their children to attend daycare. Even if they can, they must take their children to day-care in addition to work, housekeeping, and childrearing. Transporting children to day-care might be a heavy burden because it must be done in busy
commuting times and within a tight time constraint. However, no quantitative research has been done toassess it.
Different from cases in which children attend elementary or junior high schools, it is difficult to reduce thetime necessary for transporting children to day-care. Even if lower crime rates and public transportation
improved to the degree that children can travel by themselves, it is still difficult to have preschoolers act
unattended. A preschooler would have to be attended by an adult, whose physical burden would certainly
increase. Although it is almost impossible to stop transporting their children to day-care completely, physicalburdens might be reduced through policy measures to improve transportation systems or the built
environment. However, travel behaviors depend strongly on conditions of public transport and vehicle
ownership, so working mothers’ travel behaviors and burdens of transporting their children to day-care mightvary depending on whether they live in urban areas or in the suburbs and whether they live near railways ornot. Consequently, to improve the environment so they can work easily while rearing their children, it might beimportant to clarify quantitatively the actual traveling conditions and the level of burdens attributable to childrearing of mothers with preschoolers’ according to the characteristics of residential areas.
Therefore, this study was undertaken to ascertain how different the travel behaviors of working mothers of
nuclear families with preschooler in Tokyo metropolitan area from other attributes, especially the actual
conditions of taking their children to day-care on the way to work.

PREVIOUS STUDIESThis chapter presents a review of studies examining the difference of women’s travel behaviors according
to the built environment, especially mothers’ burdens attributable to transporting their children.
Recent studies particularly address the putative relationship between the difference of built environmentand children’s travel behaviors (3-6). They are based on the ideas that the more easily children can travel alone,
the lower the burden on parents in transporting their children. Using the National Household Travel Survey(NHTS) conducted by United States Department of Transportation, McDonald (3) sought to verify in his
hypothesis that because children can travel alone in highly populated urban areas, their mothers’ burden oftransporting children should be reduced, which could not be confirmed. Children turned out to be able totravel alone in both conditions: in highly populated urban areas, they were able to travel alone on foot; they
were able to use school buses or drive vehicles themselves in thinly populated suburban areas. In 2001,
Weston (4) analyzed the travel behaviors of 13–15-year-old children by gender with NHTS, suggesting that theirtravel behaviors differed between sexes. They were affected by the built environment. He pointed out thatyoung women, who are subjected to greater danger of being kidnapped, avoided commuting on foot, by cycle
and bus without being attended by their parents, which might explain gender differences of travel by young
people. Waygood et al. (5) (6) compared the travel behaviors of 10–11-year-old children in the Kyoto–Osaka–
Kobe area in Japan to those of children in the United States, based on their hypothesis that children cantransport themselves in more advanced transit oriented development (TOD) and that the burden of parents fortransporting their children should be reduced. Results show that the percentage of Japanese parents
transporting their children was 15%, which was very low compared with 65% in the United States. Other results
suggest that Japanese children should be remarkably more independent of their parents and go to school moreby themselves.
This research also specifically assessed the relationship between the built environment and reduction of
mothers’ burdens attributable to transporting their children. However, unlike most previous studies, targeting
elementary and junior high school students sufficiently old to commute independently, i.e., “children’s selfreliant travel,” this research specifically assessed “the burden of mothers with preschoolers”, who havepractical difficulties going out alone. Additionally, previous studies have compared built environments using
indexes including urban/suburban environments, level of TOD, urban density, and ease of walking. Consideringthat mothers’ travel behaviors and burdens of transporting their children should be affected by whether they72

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Travel behavior of working mothers in Tokyo metropolitan area

live near the railway or not, the present study categorized built environments into three: central Tokyo,
suburbs along railways and suburbs distant from railways. The method of classification was unique to thisresearch and different from those of previous studies.

ANALYTICAL METHODS
Methodology
Analyzing built environments and quantitatively clarifying the characteristics of working mothers withchildren under five years old in terms of travel behaviors and behaviors of transporting their children to daycare, this study inspects two hypotheses. One is that households with juveniles travel more, for the purpose of
dropping off and picking up, than households without. Their total hours spent on dropping off and picking up isa matter of great importance. Another is that the travel behavior of households with juveniles changes
depending on residential region. To inspect these hypotheses, this study compares the travel behavior of 20–
39 year old working women according to residential area and by household composition. The study uses resultsof the Tokyo Metropolitan Area Person-Trip Survey, conducted in 2008.
To be more specific, comparison of the total number of average daily trips and travel time which wereclassified by households with children under 5 and without, and also the residential region they live in.
Furthermore, this study focuses on dropping off and picking up their children while commuting in the morning.
Also, to clarify the time loss emerged by taking their children to day-care center, this study compares time tocommute making detours to the day-car center and ones without.

Data
The Tokyo metropolitan Area Person-Trip Survey is a sample survey which assessed actual conditions of aperson’s daily travel and helped elicit transportation plans in urban areas in particular. The examinees wereselected randomly from households who live in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The questionnaires were sent to
the target households where they were completed and returned by mail or via the internet. It was a large-scale
survey with a sampling rate of 2.12% and the sample number of 730,000. The survey consisted of two types:
individual and household questionnaires. With the former, destination, time, purpose, and transportation wererevealed; with the latter, sex, age, occupation, and possession situations of driver license and car of all themembers of a household. It showed a person’s individual travel behavior by composition of the household inwhich he or she resided.
Tokyo Metropolitan Area Person-Trip Survey data was aggregated into categorized sections which had been
decided by Tokyo Metropolitan Transportation Planning Conference, the head of investigation practice, thenannounced officially. Although statistical tests are usually necessary to evaluate the significance of a difference,
data of individual samples could not be used, so the comparison was made using aggregated values.

Area Types
The Tokyo metropolitan area has an urban structure in which workplaces are highly integrated in the city
center. Residential areas are spread in the suburbs and are connected by railways. The railways are multiply
networked in both radiating and circular directions in a highly complex network that is rare even whenregarded on a world scale. The Tokyo metropolitan area Person-Trip survey (2008) showed that the Tokyo
metropolitan area’s modal share of railways and cars were 30% and 29%, respectively, with railways being used
more than cars for the first time.
To conduct travel behavior analyses considering different area features as indexes of built environments as
described in former chapter, this study categorized the circle area with a radius of 50 km from the center of thecity into three parts: central Tokyo, suburbs along railways and suburbs distant from railways. Business
functions concentrate in central Tokyo, with a high level of railway service. Suburbs along railways have a highlevel of railway service and integrated city functions near train stations. The suburbs that are distant fromrailways are mainly residential zones that are distant from any train station. Their bus service level is low. The
concrete classification method is presented in Table 1.

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TABLE 1. Area Types and Area Features
Mean population
density

Service level of
public transportation

8 wards in central Tokyo(about 10 km from the center)

137 people /haBoth the station density and travel
frequency are extremely high.

Suburbs along
railways

Area from 1.5 km from the station(50 km from the center)

80 people /haStation density and travel
frequency are high.

Suburbs distantfrom railways

Ather areas(50 km from the center)21 people /haWith long distance from a railway
station.

Area types

Area range

Central Tokyo

50 km from the center of：Central Tokyo：Suburbs along railways：Suburbs distant from railways

FIGURE 1. Area Types

Household Types
The household questionnaires from the Tokyo Metropolitan Person-Trip Survey include the number ofpeople appertaining to a household, their sex, and age but not their family relationship. Not being able tocomprehend their relationship with family members precisely, an alternative rule was consequently
established to assume the family relationship regarding their sex and age.
First, households with employed women aged 20–39 were selected. In a household, a man with an age
difference within 20 years was regarded as the woman’s husband. Boys and girls under 16 with an age
difference of greater than 20 years were regarded as children of the woman residing in the household. Under
these conditions, the household types shown by Table 2 were defined. Whereas this study targeted householdswith preschoolers younger than 6, the person trip survey showed data for every five years. Therefore, thehouseholds with children were divided into households with children under five years old and households
without children under five years old.

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TABLE 2. Household Types
Household types

Central Tokyo

Population (thousands)
Suburbs along
Suburbs distantrailwaysfrom railways

Total

Ratio

I

Single-person households

77

480

101

658

22%

II

Men and women households

28

294

107

429

14%

IIIA

Men, women and children(under five) households

11

147

75

234

8%

IIIB

Men, women and children(five and older) households

5

99

74

177

6%

IV

Others

539

864

638

1,554

51%

Total

173

1,884

994

3,052

100%

(Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)

To see the composition ratio of 20–39-year-old employed women according to household type, singleperson households and households with men and women accounted for about 40%. Households with children
under five years old and households without children under five years old or younger respectively accounted
for 8% and 6% of the total. Others accounted for about 50%, most of whom were women living with theirparents.

FEATURES OF YOUNG WORKING WOMEN’S TRAVEL BEHAVIOR
As described above, to elucidate working mothers’ travel behavior, addressing “presence or absence ofchildren under five years old” and “differences of area types,” this study used only aggregate results for groups
I–III among the household types presented in Table 2.

Average Daily Trips
The number of average daily trips of women with children (household type III) was larger than that of otherhousehold types. The difference among residential areas was not large. The difference was attributable to thetrips related to dropping off and picking up. The average daily trips attributable to dropping off and picking upof household type IIIA was higher than that of household type IIIB. Although some trips were dedicated to the
dropping off and picking up even in household type IIIB, they traveled more for commuting. Results suggestthat when children are younger, the number of daily trips for picking up and dropping off should be larger andthat when they become more independent, their mothers should return to work and the number of times
commuting should become larger.
The number of trips for dropping off and picking up included all the trips for women taking their husbands
to railway stations, their fathers or mothers living in their neighborhood to hospitals, and their children to daycare, elementary schools or cram schools. However, because households without children had few trips for
dropping off and picking up, it might be inferred that most such trips are for transporting their children to orfrom someplace.

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FIGURE 2. Average Daily Trips Made by Women by Household and by Residential Area
(Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)

Modal Split
Although the percentages of trips by rail of the women in household types I and II were high, thepercentages of trips by car, bicycle, and on foot were high in household type III. Analyzing them by residential
areas, for women living in the suburbs distant from railways, the percentage of trips by car was higher ingeneral.
Comparison of household types IIIA and IIIB reveals that the percentage of trips by rail and walking was
higher in the former and the percentage of trips by bicycle, in the latter. When they traveled with their young
children who are unable to move alone, they tended to use public transportation or walk. As their children
became somewhat older, bicycle use increases. Certainly, mothers often carry their children in a stroller or witha front baby carrier, as demonstrated by these figures.
Looking at the regions individually, the share of automobile travel is high at suburbs distant from therailway. Car owner rates at the city center area show 4% from type I and 50% from type III. On the other hand,areas distant from the railway show 35% from type I and 90% from type III. The further they live from the city
center, the higher the portion of automobile and possession of automobile can be seen, under the condition ofpresence or absence of children under 5.

FIGURE 3. Modal Split of Women by Household and by Residential Area
(Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)76

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Travel behavior of working mothers in Tokyo metropolitan area

Average Daily Travel TimeThe average daily travel time of women in household type III was shorter than in other household types.
The total travel time of the women under less time pressure in household types I and II was longer. The womenin household type III who were compelled to devote their time to child-rearing activities including picking up
and dropping off at day-care might make efforts to reduce travel time by doing necessary tasks in theirneighborhood.
Analyzing them by residential area revealed that, for women of household types I and II, the closer they
lived to the city center, the shorter their travel time became. In the urban central areas on which various
functions focus, it was suggested that they should be able to save their travel time. For the women inhousehold type III, however, the total travel time in suburbs distant from railways was the shortest.
Based on the result that the number of daily trips and the daily travel time of the women in household type
III were larger but less time, respectively, than in household types I and II, women in household type III areinferred to spend a shorter time traveling for their various purposes. Looking at households with children,
households with children under 5 show large number of daily trips that aimed to drop off and pick up. It also
shows high portions of on foot and public transportation, and long daily travel time. It can be estimated thathouseholds with juveniles spend a long time travelling in order to adjust their method of travel and travelingspeed to their children.

FIGURE 4. Women’s Total Travel Time per Day by Household and by Residential Area
(Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)

ANALYSES PARTICULARLY ADDRESSING PICKING UP AND DROPPING OFF AT DAY-CARE
As the results of analyses above suggest, it was remarkable that women in households with children underfive years old traveled frequently for dropping off and picking up compared with women from households withother compositions. Therefore this study conducts a comparison on transportation conditions of commuting
with and without dropping off, which aims to visualize the burden on mothers with the duty of picking up anddropping off.
Concretely, the subjects of the comparison are, within household type III A, trips including dropping offchildren at schools, educational facilities, kindergartens and day-care facilities on the way to work and those
without, both occurring between 6:00–11:00. This compares transportation modes to drop-off destination andto workplace and the required time spent for travel from home to the workplace.
Results depended on the relation between residential places and workplaces. Therefore, residential places
were divided into two categories: suburbs along railways and suburbs distant from railways. Workplaces weredivided into three categories for comparison: central Tokyo, suburbs along railways, and suburbs distant fromThe 5th International Conference on Women’s Issues in Transportation

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railways. The residential places were categorized into two categories because very few women living in thecentral city transported their children to day-care while commuting.

Modal Split
Women who live in the suburbs along railways and work in central Tokyo or the suburbs along railways
used bicycles or walking for day-care related travel and used railways and bicycles for commuting, in general.
More than half of the women with workplaces in the suburbs distant from railways used bicycles for day-carerelated travel and cars for commuting. With their workplaces in the suburbs distant from railways, even if livingin the suburbs along railways, the women generally used cars. Women living in the suburbs distant fromrailways and commuting to central Tokyo used bicycles for day-care related travel and railways for commuting.
For women working in the suburbs along or distant from railways, the percentages of trips by cars were thehighest for women transporting children to day-care, and commuting.
These showed the following: when they worked in central Tokyo, the women used bicycles or walked fortransporting children to day-care and used railways to work; working in the suburbs distant from railways, theyused cars both for day-care and day-care related travel and commuting. Working in the suburbs along railways,
the ways they used cars depended on whether they lived along or distant from railways.
Residence

Dropping off children

To work

workplace

workplace

workplace

workplace

Suburbs
Along
Railways

Suburbs
Distant
from
Railways

FIGURE 5. Modal Split (for Transporting Children to Day-care and Commuting) of Women by Household,
Residential area, and Workplace (Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)

Time Required from Home to Workplace
In all cases, there was a time difference of about 10–20 min depending on whether there was day-carerelated travel while commuting from home to the workplace. The difference of 10–20 min was the physicalburden on working women, which seemed to make little difference when compared by area.
The point to examine specifically was the total time necessary for commuting. When women living in thesuburbs and working in central Tokyo had day-care related travel, it took 70–80 min on average to travel to theworkplace. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, multiple and advanced business functions are integrated in central
Tokyo. Women who hope to work in such businesses must look for their workplace there. However, when theychoose to live in the suburbs and work in central Tokyo, they must spend as many as 70–80 min twice a day,every day, on traveling to and from the workplace in the morning and evening. Furthermore, the maintransportation mode to central Tokyo is rail. Therefore, they must take a crowded train at peak rush hour. For
this reason, physical burdens are imposed particularly on working women.

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Travel behavior of working mothers in Tokyo metropolitan area

Residence
Suburbs Along Railways
workplace

Residence
Suburbs Distant from Railways
workplace

FIGURE 6. Women’s Travel Time for Commuting (with and without Day-care-Related Travel) by Household(Source: Tokyo metropolitan Person-Trip survey, 2008)

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The results of analyses conducted in this research showed that, in terms of the travel behaviors of working
women with children under five years old, the number of trips was larger than those by other women.
Additionally, transportation modes and travel time varied depending on the area type.
The quality of life (QOL) of working mothers might be affected by various factors, including the presence
and absence of children and the mothers’ day-care related travel, and residential environments, to which might
be added “quality of work.” That point might be true because the city center often has integrated populations
and city functions and provides various and high-quality jobs for which more people live in the suburbs andwork in the city center. When women look for challenging jobs, their wish can often and actually be fulfilled in
the city center, so they might choose to work in the city center even if the commuting time is somewhat
longer. Nevertheless, it is physically impossible for all people working in city center to live there in any city ofthe same scale as Tokyo. Furthermore, the city center is not necessarily appropriate as an environment inwhich to rear children. Consequently, it is reasonable to choose living in the suburbs after weighing andevaluating several factors. Which factor might improve the QOL for working women among living and working
in the city center, living in the suburbs and working in city center, and living and working in the suburbs
depends on at which stage of life they are and how important they consider their work to be. Certainly,
households with children under five years old might have greater physical burdens but more of a sense of
spiritual happiness by which they care for their children. The results of analyses presented herein might
constitute objective assessments to consider when choosing among various lifestyles.
For the future, it will be desirable to design cities presenting various options, so that residents can enjoy avariety of jobs and balance work satisfaction, commute time, and day-care related travel. Concretely, politicalmeasures to advance the return of residents to the city center and to create hubs with integrated business
functions along railways in the suburbs to prevent overconcentration in the city. To realize this, long-term andconsistent political measures will be necessary. Ties and collaboration with private companies will also benecessary.
Analyses for this study used only travel behavior data. To evaluate the relationship between travel behavior
and QOL of all people as well as working women in the future, it will be necessary to make more qualitative
valuations and analyses, say, by introducing the QOL index as a policy variable into the Person-Trip survey.

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