It is common these days to suggest that millennials have dramatically different preferences than other generations.
Understanding the true preferences of the millennial generation can provide insight into the future landscape of mobility, and thus provide both industry and policy makers with more information about what business practices and policies to implement. This is particularly true when it comes to our policies related to global warming.
Two analyses Our paper contains two sets of analyses. First, using data from various National Household Transportation Surveys , we estimate vehicle ownership rates and annual miles traveled controlling for confounding variables such as income, household size, urbanity and education. We find there is no evidence of a difference in vehicle ownership. In contrast to conventional wisdom, millennials actually drive more miles per year.
To do this, we use Census data and estimate how millennials are changing their marriage rates, urbanity, number of children and income levels. We then estimate how those changes affect vehicle ownership. While we find that millennials are altering life choices that affect vehicle ownership, the net effect of those endogenous choices is to reduce vehicle ownership by less than 1%. We can statistically rule out effects larger than 2%.