The Effect of Affluence and Gender on Active School Travel

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 2023 sets out aims to increase active travel trips by 50% and to shift 30% of escort-to-education trips to sustainable modes of travel by 2030. Promoting cycling to school requires a full understanding of the barriers to cycling to school for different groups. Previous work by the author identified gender differences in perceptions of cycling among secondary school students. In addition to gender, this study focuses on the affluence effect. A survey was completed by 306 students across six schools in Limerick City and Suburbs. The Family Affluence Scale 2 (FAS 2) was used to categorise students into affluence groups and students responded to Likert Scale questions. The results showed that as affluence increases, the gender gap in active travel (walking and cycling) rates increases. Among those in the highest affluence group, boys were approximately 2½ times more likely to walk or cycle to school than girls. Tukey-Kramer ad hoc tests comparing mean differences between responses in different affluence groups revealed that there is a particular affinity among the most disadvantaged boys and the most affluent girls towards travelling by car to school compared with other means of travel. These findings have implications on messaging to promote cycling to school to various affluence groups.