Can gendered mobility and activity space explain gendered mental health?

Abstract

The literature has revealed significant gender differences in mobility and daily activity patterns such as travel mode choices, travel distances and activity patterns, etc. On the other hand, there is also empirical evidence concerning gendered mental health. There is, however, little research concerning the potential link between gendered mobility and activity pattern and gendered mental health. This study intends to explore and establish such a link. We make use of sample survey data collected from Shanghai in 2018 and develop multi group path analysis model to identify the relationship between mobility, activity space and mental health for the two gender groups. The results confirm the findings of previous studies and show that there are major differences in mobility and activity space between the two genders: males have longer travel time, conduct less maintenance activities but more nighttime activities, and visit fewer places on daily basis than females do. More importantly, this study finds that mobility and activity space have different implications for male and female’s mental health: the usage of public transit has negative impacts on the mental health of females, but not that of males; engagement in nighttime activities contributes to the mental health of females, but not that of males; and conducting more diverse types of activities help elevate men’s mental health, but not women’s. Our research findings suggest that planners and policy makers may develop gender-specific mental health promoting policies and strategies such as: males’ mental health could benefit from land use mix strategies, which facilitate their participation in different types of activities; infrastructures and facilitates that enable more nighttime activities for females could help improve their mental health.