Job access and commute penalties: Balancing work and residence in Los Angeles

There is an ongoing debate about whether minorities and women pay a commute penalty-that is, do these groups commute farther for lower wages than White males? Research based on commuting time has suggested that minority women bear the multiple jeopardy of race and gender in their journey-to-work behavior, The present study re-examines those findings. We show that minority women who commute longer distances have higher earnings. There is a positive or in some cases neutral relationship between distance and earnings. This suggests that we treat the notion of a commute penalty with some caution. However, women still do not earn as much as men and they are relatively if not absolutely disadvantaged in the commuting process. As expected, for women as for men, skill is a major factor in earnings gains, and relying on public transportation negatively affects earnings. In the past decade it has been fashionable to focus on the negative impacts of commuting on women, but the evidence from this study suggests that the shorter commutes by women may be an expression of the way in which families balance work and residence.