HOW DIFFERENT ARE BARRIERS AGAINST OUT-OF-HOME ACTIVITY PARTICIPATION FOR WOMEN RAISING CHILDREN?

Against the backdrop of an ageing Japan, and as a countermeasure against the low birthrate phenomenon, the promotion of an environment that allows children, pregnant women, and parents of babies and young children to participate in out-of-home activities in a safe and comfortable manner is increasingly becoming more important. This study focuses on barriers encountered by parents with young children when conducting out-of-home daily activities. We conducted a web-based questionnaire survey on 1,000 women with young children living in the Kanto Region, including Tokyo Metropolitan Area. We found differences in their travel mode and frequency, and attitude towards barriers for out-of-home activity participation among living areas and individual/household characteristics such as working mother or not, numbers and years of children, years of raising child, household structures, etc.

Nobuaki Ohmori is associate Professor in the Department of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo. He received his PhD in Urban Engineering in March of 2000 from the University of Tokyo. His research interests include urban accessibility and transportation for Children and parents, and more generally urban transportation planning;travel behavior; activity-travel analysis;and Information and Communication Technologies applied to transportation.