Commute duration and subjective wellbeing in developing contexts: The role of safety concerns

Noting that commute duration has increased over time and the negative relationship between commute time and wellbeing, this paper examines the relationship between commuting and wellbeing in a developing country context. The premise is that the welfare loss associated with increased travel time is not uniformly distributed and disproportionately affect those of lower socioeconomic status. Data is sourced from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory Quality of Life (QoL) survey. Adopting the multivalued treatment framework, I estimate the relationship between commute duration and subjective wellbeing using the Double Machine Learning approach. I also check the robustness of results to unobserved factors. The result shows that longer commute (>45mumites) is associated with significant decline in wellbeing and concentrated amongst those of lower socioeconomic status. The key result links the literature on commuting and wellbeing to the literature on crime/safety and wellbeing. It is shown that safety concerns do not only mediate the relationship between commute duration and subjective wellbeing, but the mediation effect is gendered. The implication is that women of lower socioeconomic status account for a large proportion of welfare loss associated with increased travel time.