Assessing job-access inequity for transit-based workers across space and race with the Palma ratio

ABSTRACT

This study examines the job-access inequity between the richest 10% and poorest 40% transit-based workers across space (i.e. central city, the inner-ring/outer-ring suburb) and race (i.e. white, black and Hispanic) in Chicago. The results indicate that there are job-access inequities across both space and race. In terms of job-access inequity across race, there are more job-access inequities for whites and blacks than for Hispanics. In terms of job-access inequity across space, the central city has the least cross-race inequities while the outer-ring suburb has the most cross-race inequities. Overall, job-access inequities are more serious across space than across race.

KEYWORDS:

• Job accessibility
• job-access inequity
• transit-based workers
• Palma ratio
• Chicago

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Dong Liu was supported by a Marion G. Russell Graduate Fellowship from the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. Mei-Po Kwan was supported by grants from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (General Research Fund Grant no. 14605920; Collaborative Research Fund Grant no. C4023-20GF) and a grant from the Research Committee on Research Sustainability of Major Research Grants Council Funding Schemes of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Zihan Kan was supported by an RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (PDFS2021‐4S08).