February 07th, 2010

More Women are Driving Taxis Around the Globe

We’ve been writing about (and will continue writing about) women’s taxi services around the globe. Driving taxis can be an empowering job for women all across the globe so why is it still a male-dominated occupation in the U.S.?

Women’s E-News wrote an interesting article about female taxi drivers in the U.S.. The article states that female drivers were more prevalent in the 60’s but were driven away from the industry because of high crime. However, it seems as if they have not returned.

The article publishes a number of fascinating statistics:

• Only 170 of 46,000 taxi drivers in New York are women.
• 60% of passengers in New York are women.
• 2% (225,000) of all U.S. taxi drivers are female.
• 1.1% of New York taxi drivers are female.

* Sources listed after the jump.

1. New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission
2. 2006 study by Sandra Lowitt
3. International Transport Workers’ Federation
4. 2007 report by Design Trust for Public Space