The Commuting Paradox

Day 339 / 365

Commuting to work is a big pain in Mumbai, and I think the case is similar to most big cities around the world. For my first job here I had to travel 14 kilometers, and it took me an hour. I switched to a different job which was closer, only 8 km. But due to the traffic it still sometimes takes me an hour to get to work. I know people who travel 2 hours and change 3 trains to get to work each day.

Why would people choose to commute this much? Obviously they would want to get an increased pay or some other incentive to justify it. This would make you think that people traveling more would then have to have more job satisfaction. On the contrary, studies have shown that people travelling more show systematically lower levels of well being. This is known as The Commuting Paradox.

Consider person A, who lives near his office and walks to work every day. Person B, on the other hand, travels for one hour to reach his office. If we consider that all other factors are the same for A and B, the reason why B would have chosen to commute that far would be that he would be getting a higher salary.

But the question here is, how much of a salary hike is enough to justify the travel? 10%? or maybe 20%?

If you go by the empirical data from the studies, B would have to be earning at least 40% more than A if he wants to feel happy about traveling 2 hours each day.

If you are faced with the same dilemma, you should really take into consideration your overall happiness as well, not just the increased pay. Chances are that you would be much happier with a job that is close to your house, even if it means earning a little less money.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The Outwork Myth