关键词: 同伴, 活动-移动行为, 文化差异, 个人主义, 集体主义

Abstract:

There is a long history to draw big distinctions of cultures between West and East with the constructs of individualism and collectivism. This coincides with a growing awareness that society change diversified in the process of modernization from the perspective of activity-travel behavior, but limited attention has been paid to investigation of companionship choice for non-work activity and travel. This article contributes to the knowledge on how to examine cultural differences by presenting estimation of companionship choice in activity-travel behavior, based on activity diary surveys collected in Beijing (China) and Utrecht (the Netherlands) both in 2007. The types of companionship could be divided into 4 categories, including alone, friend, core family member and other family members, which present the ordered degree from individualized to collective tendencies. According to descriptive analysis, the companionship share shows people in Beijing perform more often with others, yet those in Utrecht tend to perform more alone. If accompanied, people in Beijing conduct more activities with family members, but people in Utrecht conduct more with friends. Other family members dominate a considerable percentage as companions in Beijing but not in Utrecht. The findings indicate that people in Beijing behave more collectively, yet people in Utrecht behave more individually. According to MNL estimation, it shows important differences observed on socio-demographic, life cycle and activity type. In Beijing, women with cars from ‘big families’ are likely to conduct more leisure and social activities with family members, while older men tend to have more joint activity with other families or friends. These results are associated with Confucian culture and strong family tradition in Chinese society. In Utrecht, high-income men with cars from single families are likely to conduct more activities alone. These respond to independent life style in the Netherlands. In both two cities, people from couple or core families with young kids tend to perform activity with core family members, which shows family-obligation is an important factor for companionship. For the influence of activity types, the result shows leisure or social purposes encourage joint activity, particularly with friends. These findings are intended to provide evidence on collectivism is popular in Eastern society but individualism is prevalent in Western society. It discusses the social integration and value tendency in Chinese and Dutch society from activity-travel behavior perspective, and also points out some shortcomings in this article supposed as a stimulant for further analysis on cultural differences.

Key words: companionship, activity-travel behavior, cultural difference, individualism, collectivism