Equality for all: Freedom for toilets

Economists are increasingly concerned about researching inequality and finding ways to improve equality amongst different economic actors. At the same time, there is a culture war raging about the right for transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. Being a socially progressive person, I am perfectly fine with transgender people using the bathroom of the gender they identify with even if they haven’t transitioned yet. But has anyone asked the toilets about their opinion?

If you are a toilet, you can either be assigned to a male or a female bathroom. And your life will be very different depending on that initial decision, some higher power made for you. If you are assigned to be a toilet in a male bathroom, you will on average have to work less than if you are assigned to be a toilet in a female bathroom. That is simply a result of men using not just toilets but also urinals for their business. In a bathroom of a given size, one can install more urinals and toilets per square foot than just toilets alone. Thus, women have to wait longer to go to the toilet, and toilets in women’s bathrooms have to work much harder and rarely get a bathroom break.

In the name of equality for all, two researchers from the University of Toronto have investigated how this inequality amongst toilets can be reduced. They looked at several different bathroom layouts. From the traditional gender-separated bathrooms to converting all toilets to unisex toilets with intermittent states of converting a single toilet into a unisex toilet. Essentially, they looked at the gains in utility for toilets and humans if inequality is reduced and all toilets are treated equally.

Different bathroom layouts

Source: Farajollahzadeh and Ming (2021).

The key result of their research is that there is important room for improvement both for humans and – more importantly – for toilets. If more toilets are transitioned from being gender-specific toilets to gender-fluid unisex toilets, the average wait time for humans to use a toilet declines significantly. Furthermore, the usage of toilets is much more equal with all toilets getting a similar number of bathroom breaks. In fact, a purely unisex bathroom has the shortest wait times for humans and gets rid of the entire discussion about gender bathrooms and who is allowed in which bathroom. We all just use the same washroom and go into the nearest available stall to mind our business. The only way to improve from a fully unisex toilet is to add a unisex urinal so that men and women who just have to do a number one can do so quickly without blocking a stall for someone with more important business.

So, there you have it. Freedom and equality for all bathrooms are achievable. And don’t you ever say again that economists are not solving the world’s important problems.