The nature of the relationship between distance traveled to work and socioeconomic status of the worker is briefly reviewed. Empirical data for Pittsburgh suggest a positive status/distance correspondence for white males. It is hypothesized that each occupation group will tend to minimize its work-trip distance within the structure of its particular areal distribution of home and work. Minimum home-work separation, determined for each occupation by the transportation model of linear programming, varies meaningfully by occupation with actual work-trips in Pittsburgh. Professionals and craftsmen-foremen have greater work-trip mobility than predicted by the transportation model and clerical and service workers less mobility.
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J. O. Wheeler (1967) studied this question.