Transport mobility benefits and quality of life: A time-use perspective of elderly Canadians
Introduction
Canadian society is ageing, as are societies of most developed nations, due to demographic trends, increased longevity, and declining fertility. For example, by the year 2021, approximately one in five Canadians will be at least 65 years old (Statistics Canada, 2003). Recent evidence suggests that the elderly (65+) population of today is healthier, more affluent, and more mobile than earlier generations of elderly people (Chen and Millar, 2000; Manual and Schultz, 2001), thus producing a greater demand for social and leisure activities (Zhou and Lyles, 1997). On the other hand, increasing age invariably results in declining physical abilities and health (Marottoli et al., 2000), meaning older drivers are more prone to driving-related accidents due to medical conditions, medications, and functional impairments (see Transportation Research Board, 1994; Dulisse, 1997; Stamatiadis and Deacon, 1998; Burkhardt and McGavock, 1999; Hildebrand, 2003). This restriction on an individual's ability to participate in social and leisure activities may lead to growing isolation and depression, which are primary factors for increased risk of disease and death (Marottoli et al., 1997; Kaplan, 1992, Kaplan, 1995). Therefore, transportation policies will increasingly need to address issues such as an increasing number of elderly drivers, increasing mobility among the elderly, as well as accessibility strategies for those elderly people who are no longer able to drive (Marottoli and Drickamer, 1993; Owsley et al., 2003). Furthermore, alternative transportation policies are required to help maintain the mobility of older people without compromising safety, because the absence of these strategies could, in the presence of restrictive policies on licensing, impair the type of lifestyle maintenance required for maintaining or improving quality of life (Burkhardt, 1999; Wilkins et al., 1999; Smith, 2001).
Governmental bodies need to recognize when access to social interactions is diminished or not available, that affordable, reliable transportation options become increasingly critical needs, because mobility provides access for quality interactions that are necessary for life's necessities as well as social and emotional well-being (Carp, 1988; Kwan et al., 2003). This means governments are responsible for providing accessible transport services that enable independent living for everyone. Many factors interact to affect individuals’ ability to access desired destinations required to fulfill their basic life needs (Kenyon et al., 2002). At issue are those groups of individuals that are disproportionately unable to access such destinations and activities, which results in exclusion from full participation in society (Kenyon et al., 2002; Murie and Musterd, 2004). This concept of social exclusion is especially relevant for the elderly (Church et al., 2000; McCray and Brais, 2007; Schönfelder and Axhausen, 2003; Social Exclusion Unit, 2003; Wrigley et al., 2002). While Transport Canada's sustainable transportation principles recognize the need for transportation systems to provide “reasonable access to other people, places, goods and services” (Transport Canada, 2001), providing accessible transport services for all people, especially for the elderly and those with functional impairments, offers many challenges (Alsnih and Hensher, 2003; Casas, 2007). Therefore, it is prudent to work towards a system that enables the measurement and a better understanding of the impacts of transport mobility on social exclusion and quality of life in order to ensure appropriate and effective policy interventions.
The relationship between mobility benefits and quality of life remains unclear, especially for elderly drivers in a Canadian context. Towards that end, our primary objective is to work toward a system that enables the measurement and better understanding of the impacts of transport mobility on the quality of life for elderly Canadians who are no longer working. To begin work on this system we use Statistics Canada's General Social Survey (GSS) Cycle 12 Time-Use data to develop contextually-derived time budgets to act as proxy measures for the psychological, exercise, and community benefits of transport mobility. Because other studies have shown variation in travel behaviour is often greater within a demographic group than that between groups (Rosenbloom, 2001; Principio and Pas, 1997), our investigation begins with a stratification of these contextually-derived time budgets by several life situation variables using both daily participation rates and average daily exposures, followed by an examination of the strength and direction of these relationships. Then we investigate these proxy measures of transport mobility benefits by domains of subjective well-being. In order to investigate the impact of transport mobility on quality of life we examine the correlation between exposures to contextually-derived time budgets and several dimensions of subjective well-being. Furthermore, we can use participation in out-of-home activities involving social interaction across several socio-demographic and quality of life domains in order to evaluate whether GSS Cycle 12 Time-Use data successfully captures the benefits of transport mobility through contextually-derived time budgets, and the future use of Statistics Canada's GSS time-use modules as potential data sources for further development of an index of well-being based on the benefits of transport mobility.
Section snippets
Measuring the benefits of transport mobility
It is widely accepted that mobility is critical for social integration in a complex urban society (Irwin, 1970) and is essential to the maintenance of life satisfaction and well-being because it allows one to more readily meet all the other life needs (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973; Carp, 1988). Therefore, mobility is an important measure of social development not only of individuals, but also of whole regions. But, what does mobility mean? In common parlance, mobility often refers to the ability to
Measuring the impact of transport mobility on quality of life
Diener (1984) suggests quality of life is a cognitive judgmental process of how satisfied people are with their current state of affairs. Leung and Lee (2005) suggest prior research into quality of life assessment included measures such as access to leisure activities, amount of non-work time, telework, and use of new media technology (Kernan and Unger, 1987; Leung, 2004; Wei and Leung, 1998). Similarly, Vemuri and Costanza (2006) suggest that the frequency and duration of engagement in leisure
Data and results
As mentioned, Statistics Canada's GSS time-diary surveys collect information about several dimensions of subjective well-being, thereby providing the opportunity to develop a variety of different indicators to investigate the impacts of transport mobility on quality of life for retired elderly Canadians. Statistics Canada's GSS Cycle 12 Time-Use data were collected from 10,749 respondents using a single-day time-diary survey with a five-minute temporal resolution covering all 12 months of 1998.
Conclusion
The primary objective of our research has been to work toward a system that enables the measurement and better understanding of the impacts of transport mobility on the quality of life for non-working elderly Canadians. We have developed contextually-derived time budgets to measure the psychological, exercise, and community benefits of transport mobility. These contextually-derived time budgets have been examined using both participation rates and mean exposures while stratified by dimensions
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for providing useful recommendations to improve our paper. The research was financially supported by GEOIDE (Geomatics for Informed Decisions) under grant DEC#SCO (Transportation Implications of Canada's Aging Population).
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