Commuting and quality of work life of teachers of the municipality of Mérida (Yucatán, México)

Abstract

Objective: This study sought to examine the effects of commuting on teachers’ quality of work life. To contribute to the reflection on mobility as a socio-spatial practice. Commuting has a distinction in the routines of workers’ day life, and its importance bears on family, personal, and quality work life. This study aimed to understand if commuting, is related to teachers’ quality of work life. Commuting distance is the distance that teachers travel from their homes to their schools. Quality of work life has become an important concept, as more equitable sharing of profits, job security, and healthy and humane working conditions and on psychological adjustment and physical health. The present study was taken up to investigate primary school teachers of two Comisarías (Komchén and San José Tzal) that meet the condition of being located approximately eighteen kilometers from the center of Mérida, Yucatán.

Methodology: Qualitative methodology. The study corresponded to a total of 11 teachers’ Komchén Comisaría (10 women and 1 man) and 14 teachers’ San José Tzal Comisaría (8 women and 6 men); their interrelation in the perception of the teachers’ quality of work life. The data were collected using closed-ended questionnaires and commuting data. We conducted 25 individual interviews following an interview with Patlan’guide with broad open and close questions. All interviews were performed during school working hours in classrooms, sometimes with the students present. The interviews took place as conversations between teachers and researcher, or between teachers and researchers assistants, each lasting for 39 minutes. All the interviews were taped, recorded in field notes, and transcribed verbatim. The next research step: data on residence and workplace were used to estimate the distance commuting by modal transport from home to workplace using the Geographic Information Systems ArcMap 10.5 and projects of the private company Rutadirecta S.A. de C.V. and the Google Maps website. For the context of workplaces, we decided to build the accessibility index, and the Garrocho (2003) methodology was selected. The concept of accessibility has its origin in the discipline of transportation planning and is defined as the ease of reaching desired destinations (Hansen, 1959). A deeper look at this concept reveals that there is also the idea of ??accessibility as a spatial attribute of places or destinations (Gutiérrez, 2010). In the first case, accessibility is considered when the user wants to reach a destination efficiently (the priority is the users at the origin) and in the second case, we speak of the accessibility of the destinations (Garrocho, 2006). Data on distance commuting by car and by bus were taken. Then, using the National Statistical Directory of Economic Units (DENUE) data, the Comisarías were located, taking into account the number of workers in their economic units. The distance friction parameter “b” was calculated based on travel data obtained in the field. For the qualitative analysis, content analysis was used (Bardin, 2002), which consisted of breaking down the questionnaire responses to the based on the first order of the concepts of commuting and quality of working life. The guide for the categories of quality of working life followed the work of Patlán, 2017, and the Maxqda 2020 software served to organize the information into the dimensions that make up the quality of working life, which are articulated on the commuting experiences. It was then grouped into seventeen subcategories, that is, around these dimensions, everything that the interviewees expressed in each Comisaría was integrated; subsequently, the cores of meaning and their frequency of appearance were located to capture the teachers' perception about their quality of working life interrelated with their commuting experiences.

Results: In this study we found that teachers’Komchén have majority benefit due to their residential location. Teachers who work in the Comisaría located in the north of the city commuted short distances and durations: 6 to 20 km (81.8%), 6 to 20 minutes (63.7%), and 21 to 30 minutes (27.3%). The travel mode: car (81.8%), bus (9.1%). In this study, about the question ‘Do you think that your way of travelling improves your quality of life?’, we found that the majority of the teachers who travel to Komchén answered affirmatively (81.8%). On the other hand, teachers who work in the San José Tzal commuted long distances and durations: 21 to 30 km (42.9%), 21 to 30 minutes (35.7%), and 31 to 50 minutes (21.4%). The travel mode: car (78.6%), bus (7.1%). And of the teachers who travel to San José Tzal’ Comisaría, 71.4% consider that their commuting improves their quality of life. Accessibility gains are associated with car use, and since both comisarías are peripheral, similar values ??would be expected. The findings: high level of Accessibility index for workplaces’ teachers by car and by bus, and low level of Accessibility index for workplaces’ teachers by car and by bus. However, the differences found are explained by the privileged road infrastructure in the north to which Komchén belongs, its access is through the federal regional road system. For San Jose Tzal’comisaría it is through the rural road system, which has received little investment in real estate development because it crosses the ecological reserve. The teachers’ quality of work life perception points out that their work overload is a constant complaint that runs through all of the teachers' narratives, who stated that they spend from one hour or an hour and a half to three hours or more a day at home. In addition, three factors of the quality of work life are interrelated with commuting and residential mobility: job factors (economic remuneration and working conditions), individual factors (work-family balance and job satisfaction), and social-work environment (interpersonal relationships).

Conclusions: High level of accessibility index for workplaces’ teachers, public transport infrastructure, mobility resources, socioeconomic factors, job conditions, and strategies to reduce commuting distance by modifying residential/workplace location, overall increase teachers’ quality of working life.