Investigating the relationships between travel patterns and social exclusion of children in Sydney

The term social exclusion in its most general sense refers to a lack of engagement with broader society. This can arise through an absence of opportunities for employment or study, or though barriers to participation in social or recreational activities, among many other causes. Recently, work has been undertaken to develop small area indicators of social exclusion risk specific to children, an area where there has been a historical lack of research in Australia. Using data for Sydney, this paper investigates the extent to which social exclusion in children is related to their travel behaviour. Overall results show that children living in areas of highest child social exclusion risk travel significantly less than children living in other areas of Sydney. The analyses also identify a number of factors which affect children‘s propensity to travel.