New publication: "Immobility and COVID‑19: comparing mobility reduction among socio‑demographic groups in a large German city during the pandemic"

Prof. Dr. Leonie Tuitjer and Dr. Kerstin Schäfer published a new paper on “Immobility and COVID‑19: comparing mobility reduction among socio‑demographic groups in a large German city during the pandemic”.

In this paper, they investigate the relationship between changed transport behavior and complex socio-demographic groups. This research results in parts from data collected during the Economic Geoghraphy Bachelor study project at IWKG in collaboration with Region Hannover in 2020.

The results show that women and younger participants were more likely to experience an impact on their travel behavior as well as reducing the use of inner-city public transport, while the reduction of commuter transport seems to be mostly homogeneous once controlled for teleworking. They also find a complex interplay between gender and other sociodemographic factors, especially caring responsibilities for children and student status, to have shaped the reported extent of mobility reduction. The papers shows that we need to think about socio-demographic variables in a more complex way instead of perceiving of them as stand-alone variables, and that immobility during the pandemic could be a priviledge and a burde at the same time.

The paper is openly accessible.