The cost of living far from work, mobility as a driver of poverty

The cost of living far from work, mobility as a driver of poverty | Photo: Iwona Castiello d'Antonio

Published on 24 March 2026 at 03:32 GMT

By Editorial Team SDG8

For millions of workers, the cost of living crisis does not begin at the checkout or with the rent bill, it begins with the trip to work. In cities and expanding metropolitan regions, lower housing costs are often found furthest from jobs, schools, clinics and childcare. That geography can turn mobility into a poverty trap, especially where public transport is sparse, informal services are unreliable, and car dependence absorbs a punishing share of household income. The result is a form of deprivation that remains undercounted in many labour and welfare debates, even though it shapes whether paid work is worth taking, keeping or expanding.

The issue is sometimes described as transport poverty, or mobility poverty. The term covers more than the absence of a bus stop. It includes journeys that are available in theory but unaffordable in practice, too slow to be compatible with shift work, unsafe for women or older people, inaccessible for disabled passengers, or so fragmented that workers lose hours each week in transfers and waiting time. A recent European review notes that transport poverty has an affordability dimension, including households whose transport spending takes up an excessive share of total expenditure.

Cheap housing on the edge of a city is often not truly cheap once fares, fuel, vehicle payments and lost time are counted. That is the central contradiction facing many low and middle income households. In practice, families may move outward to reduce rent, only to replace one burden with another, a longer and costlier commute that erodes wages, limits access to better jobs and reduces time for care, study and rest. The burden is particularly severe for workers in informal employment, domestic work, logistics, retail, health support roles and other occupations with early starts, late finishes or unpredictable shifts.

The public interest case is straightforward. Labour markets depend on mobility, but mobility is not distributed evenly. When transport systems fail, poverty is not only measured in money, but in hours lost, jobs declined and opportunities never reached. The World Bank argues that transport systems giving access to jobs and services are essential to reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity. UN-Habitat makes a similar point through SDG 11.2, which calls for access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all. The target matters because access is not a technical side issue in urban planning, it is a condition for participation in economic and civic life.

Globally, the scale of the access gap remains stark. According to UN-Habitat and related SDG reporting, only about half of the world’s urban population has convenient access to public transport, with major regional disparities. In the Asia-Pacific region, UN ESCAP has reported access below the global average. That means the journey to work is still determined less by individual effort than by the urban form and transport investment choices built around households.

Mobility poverty often appears where housing policy and transport policy are planned separately, even though households experience them as one monthly budget. A worker does not separate rent from the journey required to pay it. Yet many housing strategies still encourage outward growth without securing frequent, affordable and safe links to employment centres. The World Economic Forum, in a report on urban affordability, has argued for the sequencing of housing and mobility investments precisely because disconnected planning deepens exclusion. In practical terms, a flat that is affordable only because the tenant must spend two hours and several fares reaching work is not an affordable home in any meaningful social sense.

This is not only a problem for wealthy cities with sprawling suburbs. In many African, Asian and Latin American cities, low income residents depend on informal or semi formal transport systems because formal networks do not reach peripheral settlements consistently. World Resources Institute, through its transport work, has argued that informal transport can improve access where formal provision is weak, and in many cities it already carries the majority of motorised trips. But informal systems can also leave workers exposed to volatile fares, safety concerns, weak labour protections and poor integration with wider networks.

The poorest households do not simply travel less comfortably, they often travel under conditions that narrow their employment choices. A long and uncertain commute can rule out overtime, evening classes, formal childcare arrangements and jobs requiring strict punctuality. For women, the strain is often compounded by unpaid care work and safety risks on poorly lit walking routes or informal interchanges. For disabled people, the challenge can be absolute, not marginal, if vehicles, pavements and stations are physically inaccessible. Mobility then becomes a gatekeeper to wages, education and public services, reinforcing inequality across generations.

The climate transition adds another layer of tension. Policymakers increasingly recognise transport poverty as part of a fair transition debate, especially in Europe, where the Social Climate Fund has brought a common definition of transport poverty into policy. This matters because decarbonisation measures that raise fuel or vehicle costs without improving alternatives can hit peripheral low income households hardest. A just transition cannot rely on the assumption that everyone can switch easily to cleaner mobility when many workers still lack a reliable bus, safe cycling route or nearby station.

A fair green transition will fail if it treats the private car as a lifestyle choice for everyone, rather than a costly necessity for many workers priced out to the urban fringe. That is why the conversation should not be framed as a simple battle between motorists and environmental policy. In many places, car dependence is an outcome of weak planning, fragmented land use and decades of underinvestment in public and active transport. The policy challenge is to reduce forced car dependence, not to shame households already trapped by it.

Several civil society organisations have tried to move this debate beyond rhetoric. Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a non-profit active in sustainable transport planning, has long argued that public transport, walking and cycling expand economic opportunity for poorer residents. SLOCAT, a multi stakeholder non-profit partnership focused on sustainable, low carbon transport, has linked transport spending to broader poverty and inequity. World Resources Institute has examined how funding models and better integration can support more resilient public transport. European Anti-Poverty Network has placed mobility within wider anti-poverty strategy debates, especially where exclusion from work and services is territorial as well as financial.

The most effective anti-poverty transport policies are usually unglamorous, frequent buses, integrated fares, safer walking routes, better last mile connections and housing built near jobs. These measures rarely dominate political campaigns in the way that flagship rail projects or road expansions do. Yet they often matter more to everyday economic security. A parent deciding whether to accept an early shift needs a route that runs before dawn. A care worker needs fares that do not wipe out the gain from extra hours. A disabled commuter needs a system that works without negotiation or risk.

There is also a strong case for measuring poverty differently. Standard income metrics can miss the drag created by mobility costs and commuting time. If governments continue to count poverty without counting the cost of getting to work, they will keep underestimating how many working households are under strain. In that sense, mobility is not a side note to the cost of living crisis. It is one of its engines. Better data on transport affordability, access and time poverty would not solve the problem on its own, but it would force welfare, labour, housing and climate policy into the same frame.

The SDG links are direct. The issue speaks most clearly to SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) because safe and affordable transport determines whether cities are inclusive in practice, and to SDG 1 (no poverty) because transport costs can erode income and access to livelihoods. It also touches SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) where commuting barriers keep people out of stable employment, and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities) because poor mobility punishes those already pushed to the margins. These links matter not as branding, but because they show how a bus route, a fare policy or a housing plan can alter the distribution of opportunity.

The real cost of living far from work is not distance alone, but the way distance converts low wages into fragile lives. In an era of urban expansion, squeezed incomes and climate pressure, mobility has become one of the clearest tests of whether cities are organised around access or around exclusion. For workers on the edge of metropolitan labour markets, the daily journey is not merely a commute. It is an account of who gets to belong in the city, and at what price.

Further information:

·       Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a non-profit that works with cities on public transport, walking and cycling, with a strong equity focus. https://itdp.org/

·       SLOCAT, a non-profit partnership that links sustainable transport with poverty reduction, inclusion and climate policy. https://slocat.net/

·       World Resources Institute, a global non-profit research organisation whose transport work covers public transit, informal mobility and urban access. https://www.wri.org/

·       European Anti-Poverty Network, a civil society network that addresses poverty and social exclusion, including the territorial barriers created by weak access to services and jobs. https://european-anti-poverty-network.eu/

·       UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency that monitors SDG 11.2 and provides global guidance on access to safe and affordable urban transport. https://unhabitat.org/topic/mobility-and-transport