Women's Issues/Gender Issues

Among women, there are highly important individual distinctions that depend upon location, income, age, household, elder- and child-care responsibilities, ethnicity, employment status, degree of disability, class, and education. Notwithstanding such variety, there are significant differences between the transport needs, travel behaviors and patterns, and levels of physical access to work, services, and recreation of women compared to men. Gender-based transport differences tend to be more accentuated in developing countries.

A gender analysis of transport systems seeks to reveal these differences in particular contexts. It also seeks to uncover potentially detrimental effects proposed transport programs or projects might have on women and men.

The benefits of this type of analysis include (1) higher economic rates of return on infrastructure investment and higher profitability of mass transport systems; (2) better responsiveness to user demand; (3) lower transaction costs because of system optimization for both genders; and (4) improved access to employment, education, and services for men and women, which ultimately raise productivity and strengthen the household economic base.

Gender issues, including gender equality, gender equity, and gender mainstreaming or gender [Page 1731]integration, have become important in transport, as well as other policy areas.

Gender terms are defined as follows: (1) gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for women and men; (2) gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men (by including affirmative action, which compensates for historical and social disadvantages); and (3) gender mainstreaming or gender integration is the process of ensuring that gender perspectives are central to all activities, including policy development, research, advocacy/dialogue, legislation, and resource allocation, as well as planning, implementation, and evaluation of transport programs and projects.