Benefits and Unintended Consequences of Gender Segregation in Public Transportation: Evidence from Mexico City’s Subway System

B-Tier
Journal: Economic Development & Cultural Change
Year: 2021
Volume: 69
Issue: 4
Pages: 1379 - 1410

Authors (3)

Arturo Aguilar (not in RePEc) Emilio Gutiérrez (Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo...) Paula Soto Villagrán (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Public transportation is a basic everyday activity. Costs imposed by violence might have far-reaching consequences. We conduct a survey and exploit the discontinuity in the hours of operation of a program that reserves subway cars exclusively for women in Mexico City. The program seems to be successful at reducing sexual harassment toward women by 2.9 percentage points. However, it produces unintended consequences by increasing nonsexual aggression incidents (e.g., insults, shoving) among men by 15.3 percentage points. Both sexual and nonsexual violence seem to be costly; however, our results do not imply that costs of the program outweigh its benefits.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/707421
Journal Field
Development
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-24