Gendered pathways to solo travel: the role of gender role internalisation and solo leisure competence in Japan

Although solo leisure activities such as eating out or travelling alone have become increasingly visible, little is known about how gendered social expectations shape individuals’ comfort with engaging in leisure alone and their intentions to travel solo. Drawing on gender role theory and self-determination theory, this study examines how gender role internalisation, social evaluation concerns, and self-actualisation motives relate to solo leisure competence and solo travel intentions. An online survey of Japanese adults (N = 346) was analyzed using structural equation modelling with multi-group comparisons. Results showed that gender role internalisation was positively associated with comfort with solo activities among men but not among women, while self-actualisation motives had a stronger positive effect among women. Social evaluation concerns were negatively associated with comfort in the pooled model; in the multi-group analysis, this association was significant among men and weaker, non-significant among women. Comfort with solo activities, in turn, predicted solo travel intentions. These findings indicate that although the overall structure linking norms, motives, and intentions is shared across gender, the psychological pathways differ. This study demonstrates that similar solo travel intentions emerge from distinct gendered psychological pathways, highlighting autonomy as a process shaped by internalised norms and agentic motivations.