Dad drives to the cabin, mom to the day-care centre

Dad is still behind the wheel when Norwegian families get in their car to drive to the cabin. Almost four out of five kilometres driven on the weekend were driven by men in 1995. Mom, however, is now completely on a par with dad when it comes to driving to and from school and the day-care centre, a fresh report on the ownership and use of private cars shows.

The total number of kilometres driven by private cars increased by 14.7 billion in 1980 to 22.6 billion in 1995. The relative growth in the use of cars by women has increased sharply compared to men during this period, by 163 and 33 per cent, respectively. Women's share of the total passenger car traffic measured in kilometres driven was 16 per cent in 1980 and 24 per cent in 1987. In 1995 the share had risen to 28 per cent. This is equivalent to 6.3 billion kilometres in 1995.

Women have more than tripled their driving to and from work from 1980 to 1995, to 1.8 billion kilometres, while the combined distance driven by men in connection with this purpose increased by almost 30 per cent to 3.9 billion kilometres. In 1995 both men and women drove about 310 million kilometres to and from school and day-care centres. In 1980, however, women drove only one-third as much as men did in connection with this task. Men still drive the most to and from stores and government offices, accounting for almost two billion kilometres or 66 per cent.

New Statistics

Ownership and use of private cars is published in no. 97/10 in the Reports series and is written by Jan Monsrud. More information: Jan Monsrud, tel. +47 62 88 54 07, e-mail: jam@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 35, 1997