Self-employment and travel behavior: A case study of workers in central Puget Sound

Eun Jin Shin

Transport Policy, 2019, vol. 73, issue C, 101-112

Abstract: Self-employment has been an important livelihood means for many U.S. workers. Self-employed workers are likely to have distinctive travel behavior because, compared to employees, they have greater autonomy over work scheduling and are less affected by imperfect information about the labor market, which increases commutes. However, very few empirical studies have addressed this subject. Using data from the 2014 Puget Sound Regional Travel Survey, I examine the multiple dimensions of work and non-work travel behavior of the self-employed in comparison to employees. The results show that the effects of self-employment on travel behavior vary by whether a worker commutes. Specifically, the self-employed who travel to work have a shorter commuting distance and time than their employee counterparts, although this seems to be offset by increased travel distance and time for other work-related and non-work purposes. In addition, self-employed commuters are more likely to drive alone for both commute and non-commute purposes, partly because they tend to travel more during off-peak hours than their employee counterparts. However, for those who work at home, being self-employed does not have significant effects on most travel behavior outcomes. This paper also elucidates the environmental sustainability of workers’ travel behavior by self-employment status, which has been missing in previous literature.

Keywords: Self-employed workers; Commuting; Non-work travel behavior; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X18303007
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:73:y:2019:i:c:p:101-112

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2018.11.002

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().