Insee Première · May 2023 · n° 1948

The median commuting distance has increased by half in twenty years for employed workers living in rural areas

In 2019, a third of employed workers lived in a rural municipality. Among them, more than half worked in an urban area. Mostly far away from transport networks and employment centres, they mainly used their car to go to work. As a result, the commuting distance exceeded 13 kilometres for half of them ; the total distance travelled daily for the employed workers living in rural areas reached 320 million kilometres, compared to 200 million in 1999.

Over the last twenty years, the working population in rural areas has grown twice as fast as in urban areas. The median distance between home and work has increased by more than 4 kilometres for rural employed workers. This is particularly true for managers, who already made the longest distances. Journeys were also longer for residents of rural market towns far from urban centres, and for those living in the rural areas of the South West.

Since it covers the period between 1999 and 2019, this study does not allow to measure the consequences of the health crisis and the progress of teleworking.