More educated people cycle more - three German studies

[plancashire]

I listen to the Radwissen podcast (in German). I found a recent episode fascinating.

Episode 26. Cycling as an educational effect

Guests:
Dr. Ansgar Hudde (University of Köln)
Dr. Luigi Droste (University of Münster)

Show notes (translated)

Dr. Ansgar Hudde reports about his studies "Have cycling-friendly cities achieved cycling equity? Analyses of the educational gradient in cycling in Dutch and German cities" and "The unequal cycling boom in Germany”. Dr. Luigi Droste speaks about the study "Fahren höher Gebildete (zunehmend) mehr mit dem Fahrrad? Analysen mit einer kommunalen Längsschnittbefragung (2006-2022)" [Do the more educated (increasingly) travel by cycle? Analyses with a local longitudinal questionnaire (2006-2022)], that he carried out with Dr. Marko Heyse.

All three studies show: people with a higher educational level cycle more often and further than other groups, and this trend has become stronger in recent years. Together with our guests we explore the question: why this is so, and what role aspects such as infrastructure, ecological awareness, political affiliation and health play.

My notes from the discussion

The relationship between education and cycling held in all three studies, including in the Netherlands. This was after correcting for factors such as income, place of residence (more educated people live in cities where infrastructure is better) and age (younger people have had more education). There was a strong suspicion that education level provides a means of status signalling, or enables alternatives. Within an educated peer group cycling, buying organic, ecological virtue and an interest in health are status signals. For those without this means, a car is an obvious choice to signal status: everyone knows you have "made it" when you arrive in a Porsche (unless you rented it). Turning up on a bike means you're poor or weird.

My thoughts

Despite this discouraging result, it does seem possible to establish a cycling culture. The Dutch have it, we have it in Germany but less strongly; in Britain it is less well developed. From these studies we would expect that in any cultural change it would be the more educated who would be the early adopters. Should Cycling UK be focusing its efforts there? Perhaps it is unwittingly anyway?

[Bmblbzzz]

Sounds like just another version of "cycling is middle class".

[Jdsk]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

Off to have a look at the original papers, and how they analysed the possible factors.

Jonathan (in London but live near Oxford!)

[Carlton green]

I doubt that there are any absolutes or particularly strong links, more correlations than causes. imho educated people tend to be more intelligent, more thoughtful and more open to change; as such they’re the ones that are more likely to consider cycling and might even have additional discretionary income available for a bike that might only be used some of the time. There’s geography to account for too. Do the better educated gravitate to places where it’s easier and or safer to cycle?

In my own family my wife doesn’t cycle much if at all, but she is both the most educated of us and doing journeys that aren’t cycle friendly; my children and I all use bikes on pretty much a daily basis. All of the family are graduates and all of us take an interest in our health. I don’t know all the influences but believe that local geography and travel distance make a significant difference to the habits of nearly everyone, and having discretionary funds (for speculative and sporting cycle purchase) is important too - the better educated tend to be wealthier and tend to be better able to manage their funds.

Of course the link between intellect and education isn’t fixed, the less clever might not be able to gain academic qualifications whilst the smart might well choose not to chase degrees and instead spend their time earning and gaining professional experience.

[cycle tramp]

.....is there another way to look at this?

...the well educated don't cycle because they are well educated... cycling makes them well educated... the exercise increases oxygen levels to the brain, and the open environment frees the mind from the distractions... cycling creates a space to allow the unfiltered thoughts to arrive and pass through your mind, memories, lyrics, places.. history, geography.. architecture.. natural history...

.I think better if I'm on my bike, cycling makes me more curious about things, cycling makes me think about what others have written and said.. depending on traffic conditions I think more deeply about things when I'm cycling than I don't any other time...

..I don't think I've ever had an original idea, not once. But the time I've spent on my bike has allowed me to see the value of other people's ideas, to see arguements of things for and against...
..certainly on those longer rides of 50 to 70 miles a day I would start the day as one person and be a different person by the time I arrived...

[geomannie]

Sounds like just another version of "cycling is middle class".

Indeed Cycling UK membership is pretty middle class. A few years ago I looked at the first 3 post code characters of the members of our local member group. Overwhelmingly our membership lives in the areas with lowest social deprivation. Membership in areas with high social deprivation was zero to perhaps 1-2 people.

[TrevA]

Or could it be that the better educated pick up the habit of cycling while at University. The less well educated don’t go to university so aren’t exposed to the cycling culture.

The world has flipped since the 1950’s, when it was the working class man who was more likely to cycle, to work at least.

[Carlton green]

Or could it be that the better educated pick up the habit of cycling while at University. The less well educated don’t go to university so aren’t exposed to the cycling culture.

The world has flipped since the 1950’s, when it was the working class man who was more likely to cycle, to work at least.

Maybe it’s all about funding and available time at certain points in our lives. At University we’re underfunded but have time to cycle as transport to lectures, etc., and activities usually happen within ready cycling distance of the University. When at work we are typically time poor and cycling is less discretionary, work is very often quite a distance from home too so it’s easier / more practical to drive or take a train.

Those that have cycled regularly, at University or otherwise, are typically more open to overcoming obstacles to cycling to work and many other places too. University entry is by competitive examination results so University attenders are more likely (than non-attenders) to have the intellectual capacity to problem solve too. Dress codes at work tend to be formal, whereas at University most things are passable; those that have cycled understand that you can change cloths on arrival and don’t necessarily arrive covered in either rain or perspiration. After that, providing one has the health and strength, it’s down to personal circumstances and preferences. Well, that’s imho and my observation.

[axel_knutt]

Education and intelligence are the strongest predictors of income, and low paid work is strongly associated with physical/manual work rather than sedentary indoor jobs. In my father's day bikes were cheap transport for commuting and holidays they may not otherwise have been able to afford, but nowadays living standards have increased to the point that all but the very poorest can afford to run a modest car of some sort.

I suggest that people who are doing active, physical, manual, outdoor work are less likely to want the same for their hobbies and transport than people with jobs that have them sitting down and cooped up indoors all day. Wealth and choice have increased since my father's generation, so the uptake of cycling is based more on choice than it used to be.

In my own family my wife doesn’t cycle much if at all, but she is both the most educated of us and doing journeys that aren’t cycle friendly; my children and I all use bikes on pretty much a daily basis.

You don't disprove a generality by finding a single counterexample. It's true that the average height of men is greater than that of women, and still will be even after finding a man whose wife is taller than he is.

[Nearholmer]

Wealth and choice have increased since my father's generation, so the uptake of cycling is based more on choice than it used to be.

True, and many choices are made on the basis of the social signals that they send. Cycling sends quite different social signals among prosperous people from those which it sends among less-prosperous people.

[Bmblbzzz]

The idea that sedentary jobs encourage people to seek active hobbies is attractive but it can't always have been true, as the mainstay of the cycling and hiking boom of the 1930s were the factory workers of industrial cities. Though an associated theory could be that they were motivated to escape the grime of industrial areas and overcrowded housing, which the middle classes and wealthy of the time escaped by not living and working there; whereas now, the main sources of pollution are traffic and agriculture, which by their nature are far more generalised geographically.