A new report by the French statistics office has revealed that 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 13km for half of them; the total distance travelled daily for the employed workers living in rural areas reached 320m kilometres, compared to 200m 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 4km 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 pandemic and the increase in working from home.