The place of transport in facilitating social inclusion via the mediating influence of social capital

Abstract

Social policy makers rarely associate the ability to be mobile with having a role in the facilitation of social inclusion. This paper provides an initial exploration of the association between a person’s travel patterns and their risk of social exclusion. Information is drawn from a major Australian Research Council transport study which interviewed 535 people from Metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. It includes an analysis of the extent of the person’s bonding and bridging social networks, their connectedness to the community, self-assessed level of well-being and their beliefs about whether or not they are able to control outcomes in their life. It was found that those who had the greatest risk of social exclusion, travelled less often and less distance, owned fewer cars and used public transport less, than those who were more socially included. However, those who were more at risk of social exclusion did not identify their lower trips as due to either a lack of transport, or problems with the public transport system. The ability to have good bridging networks appears to be related to increased trip-making and promotion of social inclusion but not necessarily self-assessed well-being which is satisfied by bonding networks.

Introduction

This paper reports on an initial exploration of the importance of travel for those at risk of social exclusion, exploring the mediating influences of bonding and bridging social networks. The latest findings are drawn from work that has been partly funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), entitled Investigating Transport Disadvantage, Social Exclusion and Well-Being in Metropolitan, Regional and Rural Victoria, Australia. This paper reports on a study sample of 535 people living in the Melbourne metropolitan area in Victoria.

Information was gathered from a self-completed questionnaire on travel (the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity, 2009) from April 2007 through to June 2008. People aged 15 years and over then opted in (16% chose to do this) to an additional interview in their home, lasting just over an hour on average. The sample purposely targeted youth aged 15 to 17 years and therefore contained a higher proportion of youth in the sample than is represented in the Melbourne population. Those who opted in comprised a higher proportion of aged people than is found in the population of Melbourne: 52% of the study sample (of 15 years and over) being 51 years and over, compared to 34.9% in this age group in the Melbourne population. The 18 to 35 age group were significantly unrepresented in the sample compared to the proportion in the Melbourne population (by 23 percentage points). As selection for the first, self-completed travel questionnaire was based on telephone recruitment, the sample is under-represented of those who are highly socially excluded. A special survey targeting these people is presently being undertaken.

This article is part of a series of articles reporting the ARC project (for examples see, Currie et al., 2009, Currie et al., in press, Stanley et al., in press, Vella-Brodrick and Stanley, submitted for publication). This article particularly explores the place of social capital in understanding the interface between trip-making and social exclusion.

Many of these findings are likely to be important outside an Australian context, especially the key findings around mobility and social exclusion. However, it may be that the extent of a lack of mobility options may be of a smaller size in Europe compared to Australia, due to the structure of urban centres in Europe. The major urban centres in Australia have developed as large sprawling areas with low density and a traditionally high reliance on cars for mobility. Thus Australia has a high level of car ownership per capita. However, the last few years has seen a very high growth rate in the use of public transport, especially in Victoria, such that the train system has reached peak capacity on some lines. The train system largely services commuters entering the central business district of Melbourne for work. There has also been a large expansion of bus services, particularly to address the mobility needs of those at risk of social exclusion.

The study sought to understand the role of transport in facilitating a fair and equitable society. The interviews gathered comprehensive information on demographics and household composition, social exclusion, social capital and community connectedness, subjective and psychological well-being transport usage and mobility. To enable these issues to be linked required connections between the differing discipline paradigms. This requirement of collected understanding has arisen because of both the increased complexities of life but also a renewed realisation of the neglect of social and environmental outcomes in contemporary Western society. Social policy has been dominated by a few areas, particularly welfare payments, education, health and housing. This is despite theorists like Nussbaum (2005) outlining more comprehensive needs to achieve well-being. The recent interest in ideas of social exclusion has been an attempt to offer a more comprehensive approach to social well-being. However, work in social exclusion commonly fails to build theory and define and test the critical influencing variables, such as the role of transport, in creating social inclusion. The research reported in this paper is one attempt to more closely understand the issues to improve an understanding of the role of transport in social well-being and enable better policy development.