Family, Work, and Spatial Mobility: The Influence of Commuting on the Subjective Well-Being of Couples

Parental commuting and child well-being in Germany

“…In addition, we expect differences according to parental gender: Mothers are exposed to more role strain due to their assumed primary responsibility in raising children (Wengler, Trappe, & Schmitt 2008). Moreover, previous research on the consequences of long-distance commuting has found stronger and negative associations for mothers, for example for their health and well-being (Brömmelhaus, Feldhaus, & Schlegel 2019;Collet & Dauber 2010;Dickerson, Hole, & Munford 2014;Feng & Boyle 2014;Künn-Nelen 2016;Roberts, Hodgson, & Dolan 2011;Rüger & Schulze 2016;Sandow et al 2014). It is thus expected that the association between long commutes, poorer relationship with the children and lower child well-being is stronger for commuting mothers than commuting fathers (Hypothesis 2).…”

“…Finally, the gender of the respondent and the gender and age of the child are included. Previous findings indicate that women are more often confronted with household and job-related burdens (Brömmelhaus, Feldhaus, & Schlegel 2019). In terms of children's characteristics, girls show more emotional problems and boys more conduct problems (Rothenberger et al 2008).…”

“…Long-distance commuting, for example, has been found to be associated with lower relationship stability (Kley 2012(Kley , 2015Kley & Feldhaus 2017;Sandow 2014). There are also crossover effects from mothers' commuting on fathers' satisfaction with family life (Brömmelhaus, Feldhaus, & Schlegel 2019). Like the partner, the child is part of the commuter's immediate environment.…”

“…It can have substantial adverse subjective well-being effects, particularly because of reduced free time. Previous findings show that lengthy commuting is associated with lower well-being (Stutzer & Frey 2008), lower satisfaction with one's social contacts (Delmelle, Haslauer, & Prinz 2013), lower life satisfaction (Brömmelhaus, Feldhaus, & Schlegel 2019;Drobnič, Beham, & Präg 2010;Ingenfeld, Wolbring, & Bless 2019;Nie & Sousa-Poza 2018;Pfaff 2014), and poorer health (Hoehner et al 2012;Künn-Nelen 2016;Rüger & Schulze 2016). It has also been associated with reduced sleeping time and less physical activity (Christian 2012;Pfeifer 2018) as well as with a higher perceived stress level (Gottholmseder et al 2009; Rüger &Schulze 2016).…”

Decarbonizing the academic sector: Lessons from an international research project

“…There is also scant information on the carbon impact of researchers' commuting habits and internet use and how to minimize them. Recent work shows that teleworking reduces commuting carbon emissions (Brömmelhaus et al, 2020;Emre and De Spiegeleare, 2019), although the real impact of these reductions might be overstated once increase in home-energy use (e.g., air conditioning, lighting, electronics, and appliances) and other rebound effects are considered. Similarly, the impact of researchers' generalized increase in the use of video-conferencing and digital technologies (Obringer et al, 2021) is poorly known.…”