Abstract
This study contributes to the current research by adding a longitudinal analysis of factors related to vehicle ownership dynamics among older adults. Given an increasing number of older people in the low-density areas, the declined vehicle ownership over the life course might add additional travel difficulties to their lives. This study uses the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (2001–2017), a large-scale panel survey of American households which began in 1968, to examine the role of life-cycle events, household socioeconomic attributes, and built environment factors on vehicle ownership reductions among older Americans. This study finds that becoming alone due to loss of partner or divorce and reduced income are related to decreased vehicle ownership and transitioning into zero-vehicle households. Age and being headed by Hispanics are also positively related to the probability of lowering vehicle ownership from one to zero. The results further demonstrate that female older adults living alone are more likely to live in zero-vehicle households than the male counterparts. This study suggests that policymakers should consider providing additional support, e.g., offering alternative transportation modes, for older adults when owning and using vehicles is temporarily or permanently impossible.
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Acknowledgements
This study is part of the author’s dissertation research and is mainly conducted when the author is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. This study is directly sponsored by a fellowship jointly provided by University of Pennsylvania’s Provost Office and Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. His dissertation was also supported by the Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions. Thanks go to Erick Guerra, John Landis for their wonderful supervision and advising. Yunhan Zheng from MIT, three anonymous reviewers, and the editor also provided constructive comments which improved the paper. Erick Guerra, Candace Adams from University of Pennsylvania, and Linda Eggenberger from the University of Michigan provided great support in obtaining and using the confidential data of the Panel Survey of Social Dynamics, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Grant number R01 HD069609) and the National Science Foundation (Grant number 1157698). Pete Kimchuk provided valuable writing suggestions for this paper.
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Li, S. Vehicle ownership over the life course among older Americans: a longitudinal analysis. Transportation 51, 247–270 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-022-10326-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-022-10326-4