Differences in daily trips between immigrants and US-born individuals: Implications for social integration

Manish Shirgaokar and Erin Nobler

Transport Policy, 2021, vol. 105, issue C, 103-114

Abstract: A key expectation regarding immigrants is that they need to integrate into mainstream society. Some countries have social programs to meet this ideal, while the US Government has largely left immigrants to integrate through their own means or receive help though non-profit organizations. One measure of integration is comparable trips for socialization and recreation. In this paper, we asked how divergent was daily trip frequency by immigrants versus US-born individuals across various trip purposes. We used the 2017 National Household Travel Survey data at the person level and estimated a series of trip frequency models where our outcome variables were daily trips by purposes. We controlled for socio-economic and demographic factors at the person and household levels, as well as for characteristics of the home location. We found that immigrants made fewer social, recreational, or errand trips than US-born individuals, which could slow their integration. However, immigrants made more exercise and education trips than US-born individuals. There was no statistical difference between the two populations for daily frequency of work trips. The need for policies encouraging social and recreation trips for immigrants, and exercise and education trips for US-born individuals, is indicated from this research.

Keywords: Discretionary travel; Immigrants; Integration; Negative binomial; NHTS; Trip purpose (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.03.008

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