Social structural, economic, and demographic influences on U.S. household food expenditures

Abstract

The voluntaristic theory of expenditures is developed to examine the incremental contribution of social structural, economic, and demographic influences on U.S. household food expenditures. Based on data from 14,007 households in the National Food Consumption Survey 1977-78, the study finds sufficient justification for including all three structural effects into models of food expenditures. The study thereby shows support for considering a sociological approach to examination of consumer expenditures. Furthermore, the study shows support for a voluntaristic theoretical approach, where both macro-level, subjective factors and micro-level, utilitarian factors are combined into a comprehensive theoretical framework. In evaluating the relative contribution of each structural component in expenditure equations for nine food commodities, the study finds that the economic component accounts for an average of 32 percent of the explained variance, the demographic component accounts for 44 percent of the explained variance, and the social structural component accounts for 24 percent of the explained variance across the nine equations. This finding indicates that agricultural marketing firms may benefit from considering a sociological approach to market analysis because of the added value of social structural and demographic factors to expenditure models. Thus, it seems that consumer behavior reflects sociological, as well as economic, conditions, and that marketing firms might take advantage of this fact in formulating their policy decisions.