Gender-Role Interaction in Activity Participation between Nuclear Household Heads: A Case Study of Suzhou

Based on the 1235 cases of data collected in the survey of Suzhou, a structure equation model is developed to evaluate how gender-role interactions occur in two levels: attribute-activity and activity participation itself. The results show that those two kinds of interactions between two household heads do exist and strongly affect each other’s subsistence, maintenance and leisure activity participations. Household attributes and children’s age are found to have different effect on male and female heads. It indicates that one important reason for male and female differ in activity-travel behavior is that they receive different interactions in household from counterparts. As expected, those results show that different TDM policies should be made aiming at women and men. It will help to better reflect the behavioral responses of household heads to changes in demographic characteristics and to get a deeper understanding of gender difference in activity behavior in developing countries.