A multilevel investigation of differential individual mobility of working couples with children: a case study of Hong Kong

Abstract

The objective of this article is to examine individual mobility of working couples (n = 3172) with children in Hong Kong from a multilevel perspective. Individual mobility is measured in terms of activity space, as captured by the size of Standard Deviational Ellipses, on a survey date. Multilevel models are used to disentangle effects at the (i) individual, (ii) household and (iii) neighbourhood levels. The fundamental belief is that each individual is under the simultaneous influence of his/her surrounding environment, the family and personal characteristics. Results of the multilevel analysis suggest that most of the variance in individual mobility of working couples with children in Hong Kong was at the individual level (66.8%). The spatial extent of the activity space had less variance at the household level (20.4%) and the neighbourhood level (12.8%). In particular, gender plays an important role in affecting individual mobility. Women with children, particularly those with lower socio-economic status and living in suburban areas, faced more constraints than their male counterparts in accessing opportunities.