Socio-spatial inequalities in urban mobility: the immigrant-native travel time gap in German cities – a mixed method study

Abstract

The study ascertains to what extent immigrants in major German cities spend more time on daily mobility and attempts to identify the underlying reasons for this phenomenon. High travel time expenditures have detrimental impacts on health and well-being, employment, and civic engagement besides other areas of life. Daily mobility disadvantages can be linked to residential segregation, which indeed has increased considerably in German cities in recent decades. We hypothesise, that living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that provide lacking access to public transportation and local services contributes to higher travel time expenditures of immigrants in German cities. We utilise the representative Mobility in Germany 2017 survey, which provides detailed information at the individual- and household-level (Nindividuals=54,259), enriched with address-level neighbourhood data. Results of hierarchical regression models indicate that immigrants invest a greater amount of time in daily mobility related to commutes, errands, and care work for equivalent distances travelled. However, neither car-ownership, individual transport choices, living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, nor socio-economic differences fully account for the travel time expenditure gap to natives. Semi-structured qualitative interviews (N=29) suggest that immigrants make compromises in their daily mobility to protect themselves from perceived unsafe situations, which increases their travel time expenditures.

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