JOURNEY-TO-WORK PATTERNS OF CENTRAL CITY AND SUBURBAN OFFICE WORKERS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Office-based occupations are an important segment of the Singapore workforce. Many of these office jobs are held by women. Office workers as a whole, and women in particular, are known to have distinctive journey-to-work patterns in the city. Considering the size of this workforce in Singapore, it is important to have a clear understanding of their daily journey-to-work patterns in the city. This study investigates the relationship between work-trip patterns and office location, occupational status and gender. It also compares the influence of household responsibilities on the journey-to-work for women with children aged sixteen and under to those without young children. Case studies of two organizations, one located in the central city and the other in the suburbs, were used to collect the data for the study; as well, 321 women employees in these organizations were surveyed. The findings show that the suburban office has a larger labourshed than the central city office. The physical configuration of Singapore, the mix of housing, and modal choices of workers explain this pattern. The results also show that gender differences do not exist in work-trip lengths when there is a near-absence of wage-discrimination between the sexes and when women receive a large amount of help in discharging household duties. Occupational status was found to exert minimal influence on work-trip lengths. Among women, those with the most demanding home roles (i.e. married women with children below the age of seventeen) were found to undertake longer work-trips than women who were single or married with grown-up children. Even though the former receive help in the household, the necessity of detours to drop children off at childcare facilities adds to their daily work-trip: as such, the car is an important mode of transport for these women. Most women, however, tend to use public modes of travel; for these women, convenient and accessible locations for childcare facilities becomes particularly important. The tendency to use public transport decreases with occupational status. Overall, the study indicates the difficulty of transposing Western theories to the Singapore context. It also shows that government policies on curbing the use of the car presents special problems to working women who, at the same time, have been encouraged by the government to have more children.