Commuting Time and Life Satisfaction of High School Students in the Czech Republic, Italy and Slovenia

Abstract

This study is a contribution to research into the relationship between commuting and life satisfaction. Our focus is on high school students. The research is based on a questionnaire survey among students in three countries: the Czech Republic, Italy and Slovenia. The analysis is conducted using six OLS regression models: three countries and both boys and girls in each country. The results show significant variance between the countries as far as the relation between commuting time and life satisfaction is concerned. A strong relation has been found only in the case of the Czech Republic. Possible reasons for this disparity include differences in the way various modes of transportation affect one's commuting experience, the role of climate and cultural aspects. In addition, variance has been found between the way boys and girls approach as well as experience commuting. Finally, our results confirm that commuting is a highly underestimated factor of happiness among students.

Time Spent on Daily Activities and Its Association with Life Satisfaction among Czech Adolescents from 1992 to 2019

“…More concretely, life satisfaction previously has been associated with school-level factors, such as type of school, school size, teacher qualification [ 66 ], school stress [ 67 ], school engagement [ 6 ], school performance [ 68 ], class climate [ 69 ], and others. Our results on school commuting did not support previous studies of adults [ 47 , 48 ] or adolescents [ 15 ]. However, children who are accompanied to a school rated their journeys as happier compared to their unaccompanied counterparts [ 70 ], suggesting that more research is needed on independent mobility from the adolescents’ perspective.…”

“…Previous research has shown that time spent on daily activities plays an important role in adolescents’ life satisfaction [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Moreover, recent studies have suggested that the amount of time adolescents spend on daily activities has changed in the last decades [ 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…Since essential determinants of health and well-being are embedded in daily behaviors [ 24 , 25 ], studies on daily activities can significantly contribute to understanding adolescents’ life satisfaction [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. However, culture, which changes due to economic, technological, and political trends, significantly impacts adolescents’ time use [ 26 ].…”

“…Although the mean distance traveled to school has increased [ 49 ], making commuting to school a significant daily activity, few studies have explored the connection between commuting to school and adolescents’ life satisfaction. One recent study [ 15 ] showed that commuting time is negatively related to life satisfaction for male and female high school students in the Czech Republic. However, no such relationship has been found in Italian and Slovenian adolescents.…”

What Really Matters: The Effect of Covid-19 on the Factors of Life Satisfaction

“…However, it is still unclear whether the coming of the pandemic has affected the importance of concrete factors of life satisfaction. Janáček and Rybáček (2020) have shown that factors of life satisfaction differ significantly across countries. Thus, it is possible that they also differ when we take into account one country across different time periods.…”