Are men or women happier commuters? A study on the determinants of travel mode dissonance and travel satisfaction for dual-earner couples with school-age children in Ganyu, China

The extent to which people can travel by their preferred mode (travel mode consonance) and its impact on travel satisfaction has received increased interest in recent years. However, how travel mode consonance and satisfaction differ between spouses has not been investigated. Also, research in this domain from non-western contexts is still limited. Using survey data collected from dual-earner couples with school-age children in Ganyu, a small Chinese city, this research provides a deeper investigation into the extent to which female and male partners are able to travel by their preferred travel mode and whether this impacts their travel satisfaction for the commute. Descriptive analysis revealed that only about half of the couples commute by their preferred travel mode, whereas the remaining couples were those where one or both partners were unable to use their preferred travel mode, mostly due to travel distance. Multivariate analysis indicates that travel satisfaction for both couples is more influenced by the travel mode used by individuals rather than whether the chosen travel mode is preferred or not. Moreover, the level of travel satisfaction is significantly associated with perceptions of the environment and traffic congestion during the trip, and this effect differs between women and men.