A 2020 study from New Zealand has found that men are responsible for more greenhouse gasses than their female counterparts.
StockSnap/Pixabay: Women Were Found to Be More Eco-Conscious
Dr. Caroline Shaw of the University of Otago, Wellington, mounted the study which revealed that although men made fewer trips than women do, they both traverse longer distances and were more likely to travel using a personal vehicle as opposed to taking public transport or walking.
The research goes on to conclude that females have a ‘more diverse and lower greenhouse gas emission travel profile than men’.
In terms of data, Dr. Shaw and her team analyzed the transportation data of a whopping 50,000 people of both genders who resided in New Zealand. The data was from 2002 to 2014 and provided by New Zealand Household Travel Survey. This lends great validity to the study, as a large sample size of data was used, and it was collected from a reliable source over a long period of time.
The outcome was that on a daily basis, females tend to make more trips than their male counterparts. However, these trips were, on average, rather short, coming up to three miles or less. While men made fewer trips than women, but when they did go out, travel was, on average, between 12% and 17% longer.
The nature of their trips also varied. Females were more likely to make sprees for the purposes of meeting a friend, shopping, or simply tagging along on someone else’s journey, while males were less likely to make social trips like these.
On the other hand, men were more likely to employ a car while women were more predisposed to walking or taking some form of public transportation. An anomaly to this is the bicycle— men were more likely to use the eco-friendly bicycle as a mode of transportation. 5% of the males surveyed rode regularly, while only 2% of women did the same.
Andrew Gook/Unsplash: Men Are More Likely to Use the Bicycle
To boost these percentages, Dr. Shaw suggests improving facilities such as cycling lanes and infrastructure. Further improvements, such as building walking paths in areas linking to more facilities like shopping malls, could also promote more walking. These walking paths should be established between suburban neighborhoods, libraries, schools, and workplaces.
Rangga Cahya Nugraha/Unsplash: Both Genders Should Work Towards This Goal
In general, the public transport system must also be improved to encourage usage by both genders. More incentives can be put in place, like reward programs for frequent commute, and the infrastructure and areas covered by public transport must also be expanded.