Women’s choice to drive is a topic that has not attracted much interest in the academic literature, due to the fact that this is every citizens’ right around the world. Saudi Arabia was the only country left, where women were not allowed to drive. In September 2017, a royal decree was issued, which reinstated the right for women to drive (activated in June 2018). This research aims to identify the key characteristics of women that affect their choice to drive, in order to seek policy inspirations for encouraging more women to drive. To our knowledge, this is the first research, exploring such a sensitive topic. An advanced behavioural econometric model, integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model, is developed to take into account both directly observable and unobservable characteristics of women to yield broader insights. Specifically, two latent variables, “Current mobility satisfaction” and “Driving importance for women”, are studied, and the policy opportunities attached on them are explored. The data come from the national project SHE Drives KSA, and the sample used for analysis consists of 10,508 women from all over the Kingdom. The model estimation results show that younger and single women, those who have studied abroad and are employed, and those who live in provinces that are more affluent and have more economic opportunities are more willing to drive.

女性选择开车是学术文献中没有引起太多兴趣的话题，因为这是全世界每个公民的权利。沙特阿拉伯是唯一一个不允许女性开车的国家。2017 年 9 月，颁布了一项皇家法令，恢复了女性开车的权利（2018 年 6 月生效）。本研究旨在确定影响女性驾车选择的关键特征，以寻求政策启示以鼓励更多女性驾车。据我们所知，这是第一次探索这样一个敏感话题的研究。开发了一种先进的行为计量经济学模型，即综合选择和潜在变量 (ICLV) 模型，以考虑女性的直接可观察和不可观察的特征，以产生更广泛的见解。具体来说，研究了“当前出行满意度”和“驾驶对女性的重要性”两个潜在变量，并探索了与它们相关的政策机会。数据来自国家项目 SHE Drives KSA，用于分析的样本包括来自王国各地的 10,508 名女性。模型估算结果显示，年轻单身女性、出国留学并就业的女性以及居住在较富裕、经济机会较多的省份的女性更愿意开车。