Just because I'm a woman: Gender happiness gap in human mobility

This study explores the gender happiness gap in human mobility using smartphone-collected data from 355 residents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area. We develop a panel-ordered logit model to estimate how the factors of a trip and person are associated with the happiness change induced by the trip within both male and female participant groups. Trip-induced happiness, defined as the change in the level of happiness at the start of the trip and the end of the trip, is found to be affected by trip- and personal-level factors. We find that the magnitude of impact is different between males and females. For trip-level factors, the top three elements yielding the highest magnitude of impact for females are associated with biking, discretionary trip destinations, and walking. Males are impacted the most by walking, biking, and taking transit, with the highest magnitude of impact associated with biking. The likelihood of gain to loss of happiness is four times for male bikers and two and a half times for female bikers. Leisure destinations and afternoon trips have magnitudes greater than one. Results of both discretionary and mandatory trip origins have the least magnitude of impact for both females and males. For personal-level factors, the magnitude of impact is low for African-American females and not significant for males. In relation to the results of personal-level factors, we caution implementation due to the small number of participants in our data collection process. Our findings offer new insights into potential planning and policy strategies that could improve travel experiences and well-being for both genders.