Gender Mapping

We do like mapped data visualizations at Google Maps Mania. Too often however these visualizations aren't really much more than pretty looking maps. Too often they lack any real analysis of the data displayed.

This week I've seen two interesting examples of gender mapping. This strikes me as an area that is ripe for serious analysis.

Geotheory has been looking at UK census data and mapping the male / female composition of urban workplaces. Gender in Urban Workplaces shows that in the UK there are some clear areas of discrimination. In London in particular the financial districts clearly employ far more men than women. In west-central London (where the shops are) women make up a far greater proportion of the workforce.


In the United States BuzzFeed has been mapping male and female usage of the bike sharing systems in New York, Chicago and Boston. The maps identify the gender balance of bike stations in each of the cities.

The data not only shows which stations are least used by women it also reveals that the percentage of women using the bike sharing networks increases at the weekend. This suggests that women are far less likely to commute by bike than men. One possible reason is that women 'trip-chain' more than men. While men can simply commute to and from work, women are tasked with dropping off kids on the way to work and picking up the groceries on the way home.