There is growing interest in the decline in young adults’ licence-acquisition rates in a number of industrialised counties. While it is unclear whether this phenomenon is still ongoing or licence acquisition has stabilised, across a wide set of OECD countries the current rates are well below the historic peaks of a decade or two ago. Figure 1 in this article shows that the peak rate of licence-holding for young adults (age 17 — 29) was in the early 1990s, after which a period of decline in the late 1990s was followed by a more or less steady-state pattern in the 2000s. Researchers studying the historic drop in licence-acquisition rates generally appeal to one of two methods — attempting to draw statistical inferences from analysis of survey datasets where both driver-status and hypothesised correlates are, or collecting and analysing data in which unlicenced young people are asked explicitly why they do not have a driving. The advantage of the former strategy is that it makes use of direct observations (revealed-preference data) of relevant personal attributes, whereas the latter relies on self-reported motivations. In the latter case the researchers may tailor the questionnaire instrument to the specific needs of the research question, but run the risk of missing aspects of the issue that they do not design the instrument to take into account. (Author/publisher)
Abstract