The opportunity cost of household transport expenditure in South Africa

Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The opportunity cost of household transport expenditure in South Africa
 
Creator Knipe, Mienke Krygsman, Stephan
 
Subject — transport expenditure; household expenditure; transport subsidisation; transport justice; mobility inequality; transport poverty
Description Background: Transport affordability is a significant concern for South African households, who spend nearly a fifth of their budgets on transport. Contributing factors include a lack of affordable public transport options and spatial mismatch. Since 2015, stagnating national budgets and a declining share allocated to the transport portfolio have exacerbated household transport expenses, limiting economic mobility.Objectives: This article examines how changes in household transport expenses impact other essential expenses such as food, housing, clothing, recreation and education. Understanding these expenditure trade-offs provides insights for policy, especially as the National Public Transport Subsidy Policy is being prepared.Method: Using data from the Living Conditions Survey of 2014/2015, the study applies fractional logit regression models to estimate the impact of varying household transport expenses on other expenditure categories across diverse household demographics.Results: Findings indicate that increased household transport expenses significantly reduces allocations to essential items, notably food and housing, with the effects varying by income level, settlement type, and household composition.Conclusion: A core recommendation is to reduce transport expenses for low-income households through government intervention as this will increase these, mostly previously disadvantaged households’, economic mobility.Contribution: Results show that if low-income households allocate no more than 10% of their expenditure budgets to transport, they could potentially increase their expenditure share on food (+1.30%) housing (+1.18%) clothing (+0.86%) recreation (+0.31%) and education (+0.08%).
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor National Research Foundaiton GEM at Stellenbosch University
Date 2024-12-10
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/jtscm.v18i0.1081
 
Source Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management; Vol 18 (2024); 10 pages 1995-5235 2310-8789
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://jtscm.co.za/index.php/jtscm/article/view/1081/1857 https://jtscm.co.za/index.php/jtscm/article/view/1081/1858 https://jtscm.co.za/index.php/jtscm/article/view/1081/1859 https://jtscm.co.za/index.php/jtscm/article/view/1081/1860
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Mienke Knipe, Stephan Krygsman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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