Layered journeys, missing links: gender, life stage, and the complexity of young women’s everyday mobility

Transport planning in motorised societies has been shaped by a masculine commuter norm that poorly serves women’s complex, multi-destination mobility needs. Existing research has treated women as a homogenous group, obscuring how mobility practices are shaped by the intersection of gender and life stage. Drawing on the Mobility Biographies approach with feminist accounts of gendered time, this study examines the everyday mobility of young women during a key biographical transition period. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed with women aged 18–29 in Greater Melbourne, Australia. An online survey (n = 518) quantified travel behaviour and subjective car-dependence; 25 in-depth interviews explored the structural, biographical, and affective conditions shaping those patterns. Despite strong interest in reducing car use (71%), most participants described car-dependent lifestyles (72%). Three themes are described: biographical saturation limiting opportunities for mobility change; gaps in transport provision across complex daily journeys creating a “missing link” effect that made car use necessary for the whole day; and cycling at night being revalued as a source of autonomy unavailable through walking or public transport. Young women’s mobility is shaped by intersecting structural, sociocultural, and gendered forces. Study findings are consistent with Mobility Biographies by showing the “window of opportunity” for travel behaviour change in young women. We identify the mechanism by which a single unserved trip leg produces whole-day car use, and surfaces night-time bike riding as a practice of safety and spatial autonomy.