Attitudinal and consumption differences among traditional and nontraditional childless couple households

Received (in revised form): 14th November, 2002

Dong Hwan Lee

is Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, Manhattan College. His research areas include consumer information processing and choice behaviour, family/household consumption behaviour, consumer satisfaction, country image effects, and cross-cultural managerial issues. He is a recipient of the American Marketing Associations doctoral dissertation award, and has extensive industry and consulting experience in international business and marketing.

Charles M. Schaninger
is Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, The University at Albany, State University of New York. His research has focused on changing values and demographics, sociological inuences on consumption, applied segmentation issues, and more recently on interactive database marketing. The order of authorship is strictly alphabetical, both authors are equal co-authors.

Keywords:
changing values, childless couples, modernized lifecycle, sex role norms, attitudinal and consumption patterns
Dong Hwan Lee Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Business, Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York 10471, USA E-mail: dhlee@ manhattan.edu Charles M. Schaninger Professor of Marketing, School of Business, University of Albany, Albany, New York 12222, USA Tel: +1 518 442 4943 E-mail: c.schaninger@ albany.edu

Abstract This study develops a classication scheme that effectively separates delayed marriage and true childless couples from delayed empty nest couples, newlywed and traditional empty nest couples. Unlike extant traditional and modernised life cycle models, this approach separates true childless and delayed marriage childless couple households from their traditional counterparts using the couples length of marriage and wifes age. It also uses couples ages at marriage to separate delayed from the traditional empty nest households. The ndings clearly indicate that nontraditional childless couples differ from their traditional counterparts in underlying values, sex role norms, and attitudes, as well as in food and beverage consumption and major durable acquisition patterns. Implications of this classication scheme for comprehensive life cycle models and future research and managerial applications of these ndings are also discussed.

INTRODUCTION Married couples with no children represent the fastest growing household type in the 1990s and 2000s (Ambry, 1992), with a projected rate of childlessness of between 20 per cent and 25 per cent for baby boomer women (Morgan and Chen, 1992). Those highly educated career-oriented women who intend to have their rst child at later ages are also more likely to remain permanently childless (Heaton et al.,

1999). These trends, combined with the upscale socio-economic prole of childless couples, make them an increasingly important market segment. Although demographers have documented such fundamental changes as delayed marriage, delayed childbearing and childlessness, particularly among more modern, educated working women (eg, Riche, 1991), empirical research on their consumption-related behaviour is scant.

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The literature suggests that nontraditional childless couple households should evidence unique demographic, attitudinal and expenditure proles (Scanzoni, 1975; Schaninger and Danko, 1993; Yankelovich, 1981). However, the evidence in support of this view is largely observational or based on indirect comparisons of combined younger newlyweds/childless couples to full nest families (eg, Bloom and Bennett, 1986). Most modernised life cycle models, including the Gilly and Enis model (1981) and demography schemes (American Demographics, 1992, 1993) aggregate nontraditional childless couples with their traditional counterparts based on current household composition and standard age cutoffs, in spite of previous criticisms (Wagner and Hanna, 1983). Thus, young newlyweds are combined with delayed marriages and younger childless couples, as are middle-aged childless and empty nest couples. The amalgamation of similarly constituted yet distinctively unalike traditional and nontraditional childless couple households is inconsistent with modern sociological theory, which holds that nontraditional values and attitudes lead to individualistic lifestyles and consumption patterns and to delayed lifestyle progression. To date, no studies have presented conceptual underpinnings or developed operational denitions that effectively separate delayed marriage/childbearing couples from newlyweds, or separate true childless middle aged from empty nest and older couples. The only research evidence suggestive of distinctive value and consumption proles is indirect ie, based on examining those with strong selffullment motivation, or on comparing couples who have not yet had children to those who have had them shortly after an early marriage (eg, Bloom and Bennett, 1986). The main purpose of this paper is to develop conceptually driven operational denitions that effectively

separate various nontraditional childless couple types from their traditional counterparts, and empirically determine whether they indeed capture meaningful and signicant attitudinal and consumption differences. LITERATURE REVIEW The demography and traditional consumer economics perspective Demographers have examined the growth of delayed childbearing and childless couple households from the traditional consumer economics perspective summarised by Wells and Gubars (1966) life cycle article, which focuses on changes in family roles (eg, parent, homemaker, breadwinner) and thus household expenditure patterns which occur as a result of changes in household composition (eg, children). They have shown that traditional homemaker-wife families tend to be of lower educational and occupational status, marry early with fewer economic advantages, have children earlier, and have more children than couples who delay marriage and delay or forego having children (Ambry, 1993; Riche, 1991). Childlessness, however, is higher among women who complete college, delay marriage and pursue careers (Ambry, 1992). Bloom (1984) found that women of higher educational, occupational and income status tend to be older when they have their rst child, leading to greater income and discretionary income, due to both spouses employment at high-paying jobs, the wifes continuing to work longer, and the absence of increased child-related costs for food, clothing, childcare and education. These greater nancial resources lead delayed childbearing couples to accumulate assets at a faster rate and spend a larger share of their income on luxuries, compared with their more traditional full-nest counterparts. Bloom and Bennett (1986) extended this focus to childless couples in the broader sense by including those who

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delay having children until a later age than traditional couples, as well as those who remain childless. They found that childless wives were more likely to work full time, and have their husbands share more of the burden of cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping. Education and earnings differences between childless and full-nest couples were pronounced, with the former of notably higher educational attainment, income and discretionary income. They also compared childless young couples (including newlyweds) with married couples with young children (full nest) with Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer expenditure data. Young couples without children spent nearly a third less on housekeeping supplies, almost 25 per cent less on food at home and 50 per cent more on food away from home, than married couples with young children. They also spent much more on alcoholic beverages, gourmet foods, house furnishings and equipment, vehicles and gasoline, and more for apparel and entertainment, but spent considerably less for housing and were much more likely to rent. These intuitively appealing ndings suggest that education and wifes work involvement are the underlying factors affecting delayed child bearing and childlessness. The evidence is indirect, however and is based on drawing extrapolations from different data sources. For example, their nding that childless couples are higher in education or occupational status is based on differences in age at birth of the rst child or in childlessness across the wifes education level or occupational status groups. The group called childless couples was composed of both newlyweds and childless couples, and was contrasted to full-nest families. The consumption differences, which emerged, were driven by family composition (presence of children) impacts, but ignored potential differences between traditional newlyweds and childless couples

related to nontraditional values, career involvement and occupational and educational status. Thus, the impact of family composition consumption inuences cannot be separated from those due to the latter forces on the group labelled childless couples. Clearly it would be more appropriate to directly compare delayed marriage and childless couples with newlyweds to determine whether attitudinal and consumption differences exist. The new home economics perspective New home economics theory provides a different perspective by focusing on differences in economic utility (particularly of time) attributable to economic resources, educational level and career/work involvement of both spouses, and to household composition on how families allocate their time and income. This approach attributes the growth of delayed marriage and delayed and foregone childbearing to increased womens educational and career investments (Becker, 1974; Blossfeld and Huinink, 1991; Somers, 1993). Households of higher educational and occupational status and greater spousal career involvement tend to allocate a major portion of both spouses time to paid work, to experience greater work and time pressures, and to pursue nontraditional division of labour. The principal focus of these studies has been on examining how the wifes educational and career investments are related to age at marriage and having or not having children, as well as how they allocate their time and income. Greater discretionary income, combined with greater work and time pressures, workrelated stresses and the absence of expenditures associated with the presence of children lead delayed marriage and childless couples to buying or saving time expenditures for labour-saving appliances and services (eg, laundry, maid, home maintenance, childcare) as well as meals prepared away from

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home. Various studies have shown that childless couples spend more of their high discretionary income on cars, home entertainment devices, recreational goods, and on imported wines and various forms of distilled alcohol (Ambry, 1992; 1993; Bloom, 1984; Bloom and Bennett, 1986; Blossfeld and Huinink, 1991; Riche, 1991; Schaninger and Danko, 1993). The modern sociological perspective: Changing values and sex role norms Sociologists have attributed the growth of modern sex role norms and womens career orientation as leading to a pronounced shift towards individualistic values and selffullment aspirations and to a decline in traditional familial and religious values including the Protestant ethic (Scanzoni, 1979; Yankelovich, 1981). Yankelovich (1981), a marketer sharing that perspective, showed that individuals who hold nontraditional values and norms tend to be younger and of higher socioeconomic, educational and occupational status, and that their alternative values lead them to forego or delay marriage and parenthood, and to pursue individualistic (non-familial) lifestyles. They tend to engage in more social, cultural and physical leisure activities, and have more healthconscious eating patterns, as evidenced by increased consumption of natural and nutritious foods, and avoidance of fatty and junk foods. They are also more involved in gourmet cooking, wine and candlelit meals, new restaurants and new ethnic foods. Rather than acquiring traditional kitchen and laundry appliances associated with homeownership and having children, these self-fullers tend to purchase durables reecting their individualistic recreational and leisure activity pursuits products such as foreign sports cars and camera or stereo equipment and also spend more on entertainment, recreation and social activities, holidays and recreational travel. It is important to

note that the focus of that research has been on characterising individuals with modern values and norms, and not on individuals or couples who delay or forego marriage and childbearing. While similarities in values, lifestyles and, hence, consumption patterns are intuitive, they have not yet been empirically tested, but are anticipated for the nontraditional childless couple classications developed in this study. Although sex role norms are likely to inuence consumption patterns and expenditures, few empirical studies have directly examined such inuences. Buss and Schaninger (1987) proposed that sex role modern couples should evidence healthier, more gourmetoriented eating habits, and use services and restaurants more than traditional couples. Sex role modern couples are those in which both spouses hold nontraditional sex role norms regarding the appropriateness of work and career versus family, motherhood, and homemaker roles; as well as gender based role specialisation. Sex role norms inuence a wifes work and career involvement as well as childbearing, and the subsequent wifes career involvement. Thus, they inuence the likelihood of work and time-related stresses, as well as how the family might cope with those pressures. Sex role modern couples should be more likely to respond to such pressures by nontraditional division of labour, by decreasing effort put into the traditional wifes tasks, and by buying outside products or services to save time. Sex role norms interact with social class to inuence what behaviour is regarded as appropriate for dealing with work and time pressures. Thus, sex role modern career couples should be more likely to hire a maid or landscaping service, to eat meals prepared away from home, consume cocktails before dinner or wine with dinner to reduce stresses, but spend less effort on shopping, meal planning and preparation, household cleaning, etc. Such behaviour, however,

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would be inconsistent with a traditional blue-collar familys norms and roles. The underlying theory and limited ndings converge with those of Yankelovich (1981), and indirectly support the expectation of similar characteristics for nontraditional childless couples. The converse is that traditional families, who marry and have children at a young age, should emphasise the wifes shopper role, own more kitchen and laundry appliances, prepare more meals from scratch, but consume fewer take-away, or restaurant foods than delayed marriage or childless couple households. While these propositions are intuitively appealing, they are based on indirect research evidence and, while theory driven, are speculative and lack empirical validation. It is the authors intent to rectify this situation by developing conceptually sound operational denitions and empirically documenting whether unique attitudinal and consumption proles distinguish delayed marriage, delayed childbearing and childless couples from their traditional counterparts of similar household composition. Operational denitions of childless couple households While demographers (Ambry, 1992; Bloom, 1984; Bloom and Bennett, 1986) have identied delayed marriage, delayed childbearing and foregone childbearing as important demographic trends, they have not attempted to formally develop conceptual or operational denitions to classify individual households into such categories. Rather, they have looked at how age at marriage, age at birth of rst child, or childlessness, vary with other demographic variables such as educational and occupational status and income (eg, Ambry, 1992; Bloom, 1984). The authors could nd no studies that developed denitions of delayed marriage couples at the conceptual level, or that attempted to systematically

separate delayed marriages from newlyweds or childless couples at the operational level. Although Bloom (1984) described the characteristics of women who delay childbearing, no actual data were presented, and the basis of his descriptions was not clear. While his descriptions imply that age at birth of rst child was examined to separate couples which delayed having children from those having them shortly after a young marriage, no operational denitions were presented. Bloom and Bennett (1986) clearly combined newlyweds with couples who either delayed or chose to forego childbearing and may have included younger empty nest couples in their examination of young couples without children. Their age cutoff for younger is not specied, and it is not clear whether they used wives aged 45, or a younger age cutoff. The resulting operational denition is ambiguous, and results in a heterogeneous category, lumping traditional early marriage newlyweds and younger empty nest households with their delayed marriage and truly childless counterparts. Given the current status of childless couple research, the authors believe the development of unambiguous operational denitions is a crucial stepping-stone in determining whether different attitudinal, value and consumption patterns exist among such household types. A careful review of previous family life cycle studies provides a solid base on which to develop operational denitions of nontraditional delayed marriage or childless couple households. Family studies often employed very clear operational denitions of traditional newlywed and empty nest categories explicitly designed to exclude delayed marriage and childless couples. Two studies excluded childless couples classed as those married more than ve years without children (Spanier et al., 1975; Spanier et al, 1979), and another excluded them if the wife was age 40 or

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less and did not expect children or if the wife was over 40 (Rexroat and Shehan, 1987). The authors could nd no published attempt to separate delayed marriage or delayed childbearing couples from childless couples. Most previous operational denitions of childless couple households did not delineate childless, delayed marriage, or delayed childbearing couples; or they aggregated them with traditional newlyweds or empty nest households. In this paper, the authors attempt to develop an improved childless couple classication scheme that explicitly separates nontraditional childless couple types from their traditional counterparts. METHOD The data set used by this research was from a larger-scale study examining various aspects of household consumption, reported in Schaninger and Danko (1993). Systematic random sampling, with three callbacks, was used to recruit a sample from a recently issued telephone directory of a top 50 Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). This MSA is widely used as a test market, with nearly 95 per cent of the households having telephones, and the unlisted rate was the 93rd lowest of the top 100 markets. Of 2,790 households attempted to be reached, 508 were unreachable after three attempts and 111 had telephones not in service. Of the 2,171 households reached, 1,160 agreed to participate and were sent the survey. Of this mailing, 307 usable, 19 address unknown and 10 unusable surveys were returned. Three additional mailings of 500 households each were conducted on nonrespondent subsamples: rst-wave nonrespondents, resulting in 54 usable responses and 10 undeliverables; those who declined to participate, resulting in 34 usable returns and 37 undeliverables; and those initially unreachable after three telephone attempts, resulting in 49 usable responses and 27 undeliverables. No signicant differences were found between the three latter samples and the

original sample for percentages of singles, married couples with or without children, home ownership, working or nonworking wife families, or combined family income, or for GillyEnis life cycle stages. Thus, the four subsamples were combined to yield a total of 444 households. The nal sample of 444 households represents a response rate of 17.2 per cent of the initial telephone book sample with working telephones that were reachable by mail. The combined sample did not signicantly differ from MSA census gures or nationwide census estimates on the percentage of owner-occupied housing, age, marital status, presence of children, or mens and womens labour force participation. A comparison of the cross-classication of abridged family life cycle stages (husband under 45, no children under 18; husbands of any age, children under 6; husbands of any age, children 617 only; husband 45 or older, no children under 18) and wifes work status (working/nonworking) between this sample and the 1986 US census estimates was also not signicant (X2 7:41, df 7, ns). Average at marriage and at birth of rst child for both men and women were nearly identical to 1990 census estimates. Thus, the sample appears to be reasonably free of frame and non-response errors, and to be demographically representative of both the MSA and the US census distributions of households. Household classication (never married, divorced, separated, widowed, married couple, or unmarried cohabiting couple), years married (living together for unmarried couples), previous marital status for both (of married or cohabiting couples), ages and retirement status of male and female adult household heads (and other adult members), and the number of children both at home and away, in four childrens age categories (under 6, 612, 1318, 19+) were collected to operationalise life cycle categories and to generate a priori comparisons.

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Consumption frequencies for 46 food and beverage items were originally measured. A subset of 26 items was selected for analysis here, which directly bear on the general propositions of expected differences between traditional and nontraditional childless categories. Excluded were items intended to capture consumption differences between full nest and various bachelor categories. The 26 items were grouped into four areas: healthy food and beverages (eg, unsweetened cereal, fresh fruit, rice, bottled juice, homemade soup), restaurant-prepared meals (eg, dinner out, take-away Chinese), less healthy quick foods (eg, hamburger, hotdog, potato/corn chips) and alcoholic beverages (eg, beer, light beer, various wine, distilled spirits). Each household was also asked to estimate the current value of major possessions, including primary and second home, rst, second and third car, truck/van, camper/RV, boat/motor/trailer and motorcycle/ ATV. For stereos, rst, second and third TVs, personal computers, VCRs, satellite dishes, and living room, dining room and bedroom furniture, ownership checklists and interval purchase price-range scales were used, with median interval dollar values used for analysis. Measures of attitudes and values related to consumption consisted of 35 Likert items: sex role norms (nine items), work and time pressures (seven items), self-fullment aspirations (nine items) and traditional family and moral values (ten items), from sources described in Schaninger and Danko (1993). ANALYSIS AND RESULTS As stated previously, the purpose here was to develop optimal operational denitions that separate nontraditional delayed marriage and childless couple households from their traditional newlywed and empty nest counterparts, and empirically assess whether the combined classication

scheme captures proposed attitudinal and consumption differences. This approach is also extended to determine whether nontraditional delayed empty nest households differ from their traditional counterparts who marry and have children at an earlier age. In the authors view, an optimal classication scheme should result in categories: of roughly equal sample sizes, avoiding sparseness, near the median ages for birth of rst child for cutoffs, producing the strongest signicance in consumption and attitudinal contrasts, hence maximising between-group variation while minimising that within, the problem inherent in aggregating nontraditional with traditional childless couples in most modernised life cycle models. The basic approach is to iteratively develop a modernised childless couple classication scheme through a priori MANOVA and t-test comparisons among alternative categories. A series of one-tailed t-tests were used for univariate tests (p , 0.05), augmented by multivariate tests. Before developing operational denitions, it was determined whether remarried childless couple households should be aggregated with their rst marriage counterparts, or maintained as separate categories. The starting point was the modied Gilly-Enis model suggested by Schaninger and Danko (1993), using husbands retirement rather than age 65 to separate older from childless couples. First, alternative ways were examined to optimally classify delayed marriages, true childless couple households and newlyweds, and then the authors proceeded to determine whether delayed empty nest households differ from traditional empty nest households and older couples. After sequentially developing the optimal treatment of various childless couple

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categories, the performance of the resultant overall childless couple classication scheme was empirically evaluated. Treatment of remarriages The issue of how to treat remarried ` couples with no children vis-a-vis their rst marriage counterparts has not been empirically ascertained in the interdisciplinary literature. Both Murphy and Staples (1979) and Gilly and Enis (1982) stipulated that remarriages be combined with their rst marriage counterparts. This treatment is theoretically consistent with the notion that positions within the current household, rather than previous life cycle history, determine household consumption patterns, as suggested by Hill and Rodgers (1964). It is probably justied, based on the ndings of a few signicant attitudinal, expenditure or demographic differences between remarriages and rst marriages (Macklin, 1980; PriceBonham and Balswick, 1980). However, it is surprising to note that it has not been empirically validated in the demography, consumer economics or consumer behaviour literatures and this study attempts to rectify that oversight. A series of a priori comparisons between remarriages and their rst marriage counterparts revealed no signicant attitudinal, durable value or food and beverage consumption differences for modied Gilly-Enis model newlyweds or childless couples, or for true empty nest couples, supporting their aggregation. Modest increases in the signicance of attitudinal and consumption differences resulted when remarriages were aggregated with their rst marriage counterparts, due to increased sample sizes and smaller standard errors. This nding represents the rst empirical support for the aggregation approach proposed by Gilly and Enis (1981) and Murphy and Staples (1979).

Delayed marriage and childless couples Next, it was investigated whether households that delay or forego progression through traditional life stages differ from traditional ones. Schaninger and Danko (1993) recommended optimal categories be determined by specic a priori comparisons interactively with exible, empirically determined age cutoffs to separate delayed marriages, delayed full nest and true childless couples from their traditional counterparts. They advocated using age at marriage to identify delayed marriages and age at birth of rst child for delayed full nests, rather than using the current age of the head of the household. The authors rst separated delayed (childless) marriages (based on wifes age at marriage) from true childless couples (married more than ve years, no children regardless of age of marriage) and from newlyweds. However, this resulted in small sample sizes (n , 15) for both delayed marriages and childless couples. Furthermore, attitudinal and consumption prole comparisons of the two were substantively equivalent and did not even approach statistical signicance. Therefore, they were combined to enhance parsimony and to permit comparisons of delayed marriage/childless couples to newlyweds and empty nest households, in accordance with the approach recommended by Schaninger and Danko (1993). Several alternative operational denitions separating newlyweds from delayed marriage/childless couples were initially examined, based on age at marriage to identify delayed marriages, length of marriage to identify childless couples, as well as a simple wives age split. To identify delayed marriages, the starting point was the median wifes age at marriage. Cutoffs were tentatively examined both just above and just below the median age at marriage, and it was chosen to further

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examine those that yielded nearly equal sample sizes for delayed marriage/ childless couples versus newlyweds. To identify childless couples, the starting point was that used previously in the family literature more than ve years length of marriage, with cutoffs of four and six years also examined empirically. For the simple wives age split, cutoffs were examined just below the median wifes age, below and including it, and one year above it. All of these operational denitions produced signicant consumption differences for food and beverage consumption and dollar values of major durable acquisitions. That which resulted in the strongest pattern of consumption contrasts and the most nearly equal sample sizes (n . 20) was based on length of marriage and wifes current age. If a couple had been married for ve years or less without children and the wife was 32 years old or less, they were classied as newlyweds (NW). If married more than ve years with no children, or the wifes age was 33 or over, couples were classied as delayed marriage/childless couples (DM/CC). This approach is conceptually similar to measures employed by previously cited family researchers, and resulted in comparable (n . 20) sample sizes. Empty nest couples (EN) consisted of those with no children at home, but children 18 or over living away from home, in which the male head of the household was still actively participating in the labour force. The interested reader is referred to Appendix Table A1 for attitudinal proles of these groups. The above operationalisations resulted in signicant multivariate and univariate differences between NW and DM/CC couples for food and beverage consumption and dollar values of major assets and of home entertainment devices and furniture. Attitudinally, DM/CC couples were equivalent (not signicantly different from) to younger NWs, yet contrasted strongly and

sharply from their EN counterparts, as expected. Modern sex role norms, selffullment aspirations and nontraditional values were shown by Schaninger and Danko (1993) to be strongly associated with younger age and to be highest for young bachelors and NWs. Despite being older, DM/ CCs were, in effect, tied with younger NWs in holding the most modern sex role norms, nontraditional family and religious values, and experiencing work and time pressures. The more detailed patterns of ndings for substantive attitudinal and consumption differences are discussed later. At this stage, the principal objective was to develop an optimal operational denition of DM/ CC couples that yielded signicant attitudinal and consumption contrasts to NW and to EN couples overall. It was necessary to rst develop workable operational denitions separating NW, DM/CC and EN couples prior to the next stage, in which it was examined whether it was worthwhile to separate traditional (early marriage) from delayed EN households. Attitudinal comparisons of DM/CC to EN couples were highly signicant. The former were more sex role modern, and wives felt greater work and time pressures and held less traditional values than EN spouses. Seven of the nine husbands sex role norm items were signicant at p , 0.05, and the remaining two attained marginal signicance ( p , 0:10). Multivariate signicance was observed for wives attitudes, and over two-thirds of the sex role norm, work and time pressure and traditional value items attained univariate signicance. One-third of the univariate food and beverage contrasts attained signicance (p , 0.05) in the direction expected. DM/CC couples consumed more yogurt, herbal tea, takeaway Chinese food and premium domestic wine, while EN couples consumed more frozen entrees, hot dogs, hamburgers, homemade soup and distilled spirits. DM/CC couples also

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had signicantly higher dollar values for stereos, second TVs, VCRs, second and third cars and boats compared to EN couples, consistent with higher discretionary income and with the authors expectations. Traditional and delayed empty nest couples Next, it was examined whether attitudinal and consumption differences exist between traditional empty nest households (TEN) and their nontraditional counterparts who married and had children at a later age. TENs were dened as those (with adult children living away from home) married before the husband was 27 years old and before the wife reached age 25. If couples married after the husband was 27 or the wife was 25 they were classied as delayed empty nest (DEN). These cutoffs are consistent with Bloom (1984) examination of delayed childbearing and with the general patterns of statistics reported by Lazar (1994) and Riche (1991) and are quite close to the 1990 census estimates for median age at marriage for men and women reported in American Demographics (1992, 1993). As discussed previously, couples who delay marriage and childbearing should be higher in educational and occupational status, more likely to pursue dual careers and have higher discretionary income. Thus, DEN couples should evidence food and beverage consumption and durable goods acquisition patterns characteristic of the upper middle class, similar to the patterns identied by Bloom (1984) and Bloom and Bennett (1986). Signicant differences in food and beverage consumption patterns and in dollar values of home entertainment devices and furniture, as well as primary cars and trucks/vans were observed between DEN and TEN couples. As expected, DEN couples consumed yogurt, frozen juice, rice, homemade soup and imported wine more frequently; they also consumed hot

dogs, regular sodas and dinners out at restaurants less frequently than TEN couples. They also evidenced higher mean values for personal computers and campers/RVs (as expected), but, unexpectedly, had lower mean values for stereos, living and dining room furniture and principal cars and trucks/ vans. While previous research suggests that couples who delay marriage and childbearing tend to be more sex role modern, attitudinal contrasts were expected to be weak between middleaged DEN and TEN couples because of their comparable age and structural equivalence (no children living at home, but adult children away). Consistent with this expectation, attitudinal contrasts between the two middle-aged EN groups, particularly for wives, were generally weak. Four of nine items in the sex role norms and traditional family value sets (only one at the 0.05 level in both sets) were signicant for husbands. It was thus decided it would be more appropriate to examine not only their direct contrasts, but to also examine the contrasts of both groups with their most contiguous life cycle counterparts. Accordingly, contrasts were examined of both to older couples (OC no children living at home, male head of household retired) and to DM/ CC couples. The expectation was that DEN couples would evidence stronger (directional) contrasts to OC couples than would TEN couples to OC couples, and that contrasts of TEN couples should evidence stronger contrasts to DM/CC couples than would those of DEN to DM/CC couples. Contrasts of DEN to OC were consistently signicant at both the multivariate and univariate levels for both spouses across all four attitudinal subsets, while those of TEN to OC couples were notably weaker, in line with the authors expectations. Contrasts of TEN to DM/CC couples also produced very strong results in the direction expected. For example,

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both TEN spouses were signicantly less sex role modern and held more traditional values than DM/CC couples, with over two-thirds of both sets of items signicant as anticipated. Few signicant attitudinal differences were observed between DM/CC and DEN couples, in spite of likely age cohort effects, which were observed to a limited degree for sex role norms (four of nine items for both spouses) and for wives (but not husbands) work-related time pressures (three of seven items). The overall pattern of contrasts of DM/CC and DEN couples to adjacent categories was consistent with the authors expectations and general proposition. Additional food and beverage and dollar values of major acquisition contrasts of DEN and TEN couples to OC and DM/CC couples are discussed in the next section. Evaluation of the proposed childless couple classication scheme The proposed scheme, unlike the extant life cycle models, separates nontraditional childless couple types from their traditional counterparts. It consists of ve categories: newlyweds (NW), delayed marriage/childless couples (DM/CC), traditional (TEN) and delayed (DEN) empty nest couples, and older (retired) couples (OC). Detailed MANOVA results and a priori comparisons of food and beverages and for dollar values of durable goods are presented in Tables 1 and 2. A separate table for husbands and wives values and attitudes is not presented in order to conserve space, and because the principal focus is on consumption differences. Interested parties can obtain that table from the authors. The overall univariate F-tests are conservative tests of the general propositions, in that they test for differences across all ve childless couple categories, while the general proposition is that differences will exist between specic pairs of categories, but not between others. For

example, it is proposed that TENs should differ from DM/CCs and from DENs, but should be similar to OCs; and that DM/CCs should differ from TENs, but not DENs. Thus, the between group mean s-square estimates, which are based on bi-directional tests across all ve groups, would be overly conservative. Marginal signicance levels (p , 0.10) are thus footnoted in the tables for the benet of interested readers who wish to minimise the type II errors likely to occur for the modest sample sizes involved in these overly conservative overall model tests and related a priori comparisons. The proposed CC classication scheme produced signicant multivariate F-values for all criteria sets, and all reached the 0.005 level of multivariate signicance. Based on values of (1 Wilks L), the proposed scheme accounts for over 80 per cent of the multivariate variation of both husbands and wives attitudes, as well as of food and beverage consumption; for nearly 60 per cent of that of monetary values of home entertainment devices and furniture; and for nearly 50 per cent of that for major durable assets. The large number of marginal signicance counts for food and beverage consumption appears to be due to small category sample sizes (hence larger standard errors), and to absorbing a relatively large degree of freedom for the between-group variance estimates for these conservative vegroup F-tests, as discussed previously. Consistent with expectations, NW couples consumed more less healthy quick foods (eg, hamburger, soda and canned spaghetti/ravioli) than DM/CC couples, whereas DM/CC couples consumed more wine than NW couples. NW couples consumed takeaway and fast foods (but not dinners out) more frequently than DM/CC couples. This nding appears to reect a NW dietary pattern still in transition from young single lifestyles, and also probably represents the greater gourmet

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Table 1 Childless couple category food and beverage consumption patterns Items/Categories (Cell size/df) Healthy foods and beverages Unsweetened cereal Fresh fruit Yogurt Fresh vegetables Frozen vegetables Rice Homemade soup Frozen juice Bottled juice Herbal teas Less healthy quick foods Hamburgers Hot dogs Potato/corn chips Regular sodas Canned spaghetti/ravioli Canned vegetables Restaurant prepared meals Dinner out Take-away Chinese Take-away pizza Fast food items Alcoholic beverages Beer Light beer Imported wine Premium domestic wine Ordinary domestic wine Distilled spirits NW (n 24) 4.08abc 5.79a 3.46a 5.13a 4.54aa 4.13a 2.79ab 4.08a 4.75aa 2.17a 4.96aabc 2.83aa 4.29a 4.42aab 2.00aa 3.21a 4.17a 2.50aabc 3.75abcd 4.00abc 4.46aa 2.75a 2.71a 2.25aa 2.79aa 2.46a DM/CC (n 21) 4.71d 5.76 4.00a 5.43 4.81 4.38ab 2.76cd 4.33b 4.14 3.71ab 3.86abc 2.76bc 3.76a 3.29ac 1.43a 3.19b 4.48ab 2.25ade 2.86ae 3.19a 3.71b 2.38 2.62a 3.14abc 3.52ab 2.71a TEN (n 27) 5.15a 5.96 2.74aab 5.41a 5.26a 3.82ab 3.04a 4.00c 3.78a 2.00b 4.41bb 3.56abd 4.11b 4.41bcd 1.70 3.85 4.56bc 1.63df 2.67bf 3.48a 3.67ac 2.41 2.37b 2.37b 3.22 3.59aab DEN (n 20) 5.30b 6.30 3.85b 5.70 4.90b 4.85abc 3.60aac 5.55aabc 4.35b 2.60 4.30ccd 3.00d 3.90c 3.20bd 1.35a 3.20c 3.80bb 1.75bg 2.40cg 3.00b 4.30b 2.00a 3.15bc 2.80a 3.80ab 3.00 OC (n 38) 5.71cd 6.29a 3.13 5.90aa 5.58ab 3.74bc 3.84bd 4.61a 3.53ab 2.58 4.63ad 3.67ac 3.13aabc 3.53ab 1.66 4.34abc 3.68aac 1.34cefg 1.84defg 2.95aac 2.97abbc 2.37 2.05aac 2.29c 2.82bb 2.71b Fcc (4,125) 2.60x 0.92 1.53v 1.11 1.96w 2.40w 3.69y 1.69v 1.40 2.76x 4.22y 2.30w 2.27w 2.06w 1.00 2.18w 2.31w 8.17z 13.97z 2.12w 2.24w 0.61 2.40w 2.02w 1.46 1.46

v p , 0:20, w p , 0:10, x p , 0:05, y p , 0:01, z p , 0:001 for F-test values. Labels: NW Newlywed couples; DM/CC Delayed marriage/true childless couples; TEN Traditional empty nest; DEN Delayed empty nest; OC Older couples. A priori comparisons: pairs with same superscript are signicantly different at p 0:05 level; Pairs with same superscript with + (eg, a+) are signicantly different at p 0:10 level.

MANOVA Multivariate Tests of Signicance (S 4, M 10 1/2, N 49) Test Name Value Approx. F Hypoth. DF Error DF Hotellings CC Wilks CC 2.21872 0.19837 2.10138 1.93274 104.00 104.00 394.00 399.27

P(F) 0.000 0.000

orientation and quality/avour emphasis of DM/CC couples. DM/CC couples had signicantly higher values for primary homes, boats, third cars, campers/RVs, personal computers, second TVs, and dining room and bedroom furniture than NW couples. This can be attributed to the longer employment of DM/CC couples at higher occupation jobs than NW couples, resulting in greater discretionary income and savings, which allowed them to be able to purchase durable goods that conform to their individualistic leisure-oriented lifestyles, as anticipated. As shown in Table 1, DM/CC and DEN couples tended to consume more

healthy foods and beverages, fewer less healthy quick foods, but more light beer, imported and domestic wines, than NW couples or their TEN counterparts. These nontraditional DM/CC and DEN couples were heavier users, while TEN couples were lighter users of yogurt, most forms of juice, herbal teas and rice; and of imported, regular and premium domestic wines. An opposite pattern of heavier usage of less healthy quick foods and beverages emerged for TEN couples (hot dogs, hamburgers and hard spirits). The general pattern of these contrasts of DM/CC and DEN couples to their traditional counterparts supports the authors general proposition, and is consistent with

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Table 2 Dollar values of major durable acquisitions for childless couple categories Items/Categories (Cell size/df) NW (n 24) DM/CC (n 21) TEN (n 27) DEN (n 20) OC (n 38) 79547def 1578cd 8625 1940acd 39cd 507aa 921c 121bcd 0aab 247ceg 465 286b 128bc 72bd 105acfg 26 739cc 585bcc 708b Fcc (4,125) 7.67z 2.25w 0.27 4.10y 3.04x 0.42 0.92 3.38x 1.20 8.44z 0.12 1.93v 2.12w 2.73x 5.13z 0.65 2.37w 2.72x 3.11x

Major durables: homes, cars, and other vehicles 103540ae 106033bf 93568c Primary home 48083abcd Second home 3000ab 8333 16122ac 18800bd Primary car 8393 8940 9494a 7512a 5430bc 4199d 2687ab Second car 4129aa Third car 135a 1000abc 153b 325d Truck/van 583a 1080 371b 30ab 1114a 351b 4619 Camper/RV 0abc 4371aac 1136abd 1275b Boat 150ab Motorcycle/ATV 70a 361a 148 5b Home entertainment equipment and furniture 529de 393afg 193bdf Stereo 635abc Primary TV set 425 462 472 433 319ab 305ac 210bbc Second TV set 234aa Third TV set 57abc 101d 199aabd 127ab Personal Ccomputer 109aa 273abb 129bc 337acd Video cassette recorder 348abc 359def 189aad 209beg Satellite dish 0 0 37 0 859abc 935aabc 725bb Living room furniture 757a aabb ac bcd Dining room furniture 485 730 810 649ad Master bedroom furniture 583aa 741ab 842abb 736
v

p , 0:20, w p , 0:10, x p , 0:05, y p , 0:01, z p , 0:001 for F-test values. Category Labels: NW Newlywed couples; DM/CC Delayed marriages/true childless couples; TEN Traditional empty nest; DEN Delayed empty nest; OC Older couples. A priori comparisons: Pairs with same superscript are signicantly different at p 0:05 level; Pairs with the same superscript with + (eg, a+) are signicantly different at p 0:10 level. Statistical tests and values of (1 L) for both sets of monetary values are based on the transformation p p ( x (x 1)), to adjust for heterogeneity and skewness with many values of zero present. Major Durables MANOVA Multivariate Tests (S Test Name Hotellings Wilks Value 0.73055 0.52158 4, M 2, N 571) 2 Error DF 462.00 440.19 57) 458.00 441.71 0.000 0.000 Pcc 0.000 0.000

Approx. Fcc 2.34386 2.31935 4, M

Hypoth. DF 36.00 36.00 2 1, N 2 40.00 40.00

Minor Durables MANOVA Multivariate Tests (S Hotellings Wilks 1.02379 0.43025

2.93060 2.75072

Yankelovichs (1981) consumption prole of those pursuing the search for self-fullment. NW couples were the heaviest users of bottled juice, takeaway Chinese food and pizza, fast foods, canned spaghetti, hamburgers, potato/ corn chips, beer and imported wine, but the lightest users of frozen juice and distilled spirits. NW couples were also the lightest users, while OCs were the heaviest users, of such healthy foods as unsweetened cereal, fresh fruit, fresh and frozen vegetables and homemade soup. In addition, OCs were the heaviest users of canned vegetables and hot dogs, but the lightest users of bottled juice, restaurant foods, potato corn chips and beer. This pattern reects OCs greater preparation of generally

healthy food choices, while avoiding restaurants, and age/health-related reduced intake of sugary/fatty foods and most forms of alcohol. As shown in Table 2, DM/CC couples had the highest mean values for second and third cars, trucks/vans, boats and motorcycles/ATVs, second TVs and VCRs, and had higher values for all 19 items (except stereos) than newlyweds. The F-test values for MANOVAs of durable goods expenditures were based p p on the transformation [ (x) (x 1)], as recommended by Kirk (1968) to reduce the problem of heterogeneity of variances, where group means are correlated with standard deviations, and many individuals have values of zero. This pattern of contrasts between

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DM/CC and NW couples is consistent with expectations. NWs had the lowest mean values for primary homes, campers/RVs, third TVs and dining room furniture, while OCs had the lowest mean values for second homes, second and third cars, boats, motorcycles/ATVs, personal computers and VCRs. Although it seems logical to expect those greater discretionary durable expenditures among DM/CC families to carry over to DEN couples, this is not the case. TEN couples had the highest mean values for primary homes, primary cars and for living room, dining room and bedroom furniture, whereas DEN couples owned the least expensive primary cars, stereos, second TVs and living room furniture, and had the next to lowest mean values for second cars. These ndings might be explained by a strong early commitment to invest in family-specic marital capital among TEN couples; or may also reect a better current nancial situation due to children leaving the nest earlier, and/or less or no recent investment in childrens education compared to DEN couples. It is noted, however, that DEN couples had the highest mean values for personal computers, campers/RVs (followed by DM/CC couples) and second homes (followed by TEN couples). This latter nding is in line with the general proposition that nontraditional CCs spend more on durable goods related to their individualistic lifestyles and leisure pursuits and spend less on home ownership. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Sweeping social and cultural changes during the past several decades have resulted in fundamental changes in the traditional household unit and created various nontraditional household types. Since the 1980s, delayed marriage and childless couple households have emerged as the fastest growing nontraditional household type. The fundamentally new lifestyles associated

with various forms of modernised childless couple households have stimulated researchers interest because their distinctive lifestyles, value and consumption proles are not adequately captured by existing household life cycle models. Although researchers have developed modernised household life cycle models that technically incorporate such households, they do so by aggregating them with their traditional counterparts based on similarity of current household composition. (An exception was Murphy and Staples (1979) stipulation of a middle-aged true childless couple category.) Those few studies which have attempted to characterise childless household consumption patterns have largely done so by comparing heterogeneous aggregates of newlyweds, delayed marriages and childless couples to full nest couples of comparable age. Thus, while implicitly appealing proles have resulted, no previous studies have directly compared traditional newlyweds or empty nest households with their nontraditional counterparts who delay marriage and delay or eschew childbearing. The present study developed an operationally effective method of classifying nontraditional childless couple households (delayed marriage and true childless couples, as well as delayed empty nest couples) from their traditional counterparts (newlyweds and traditional empty nest couples) and from older couples. The operational denitions developed separate newlywed and empty nest households from delayed marriages and true childless couples rather than aggregate them with their more traditional counterparts as did most previous studies. Moreover, this study directly examined differences between traditional newlyweds and empty nest couples from modern childless couples rather than comparing their heterogeneous aggregates (labelled

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childless couples) to full nest households. This approach not only incorporates delayed marriages, true childless couples and delayed empty nest households, but classies them into reasonably homogeneous separate categories. The empirical evaluation of this classication scheme generated strong results that are indicative of an improved treatment of couples without dependent children, and the resultant scheme can be readily incorporated into extant household life cycle models. From a conceptual point of view, this childless household classication approach captures underlying role theory inuences those related not just to underlying values, but also to sex role norms, to current household composition, and also to anticipated future roles (anticipatory socialisation). It also indirectly captures the impact of socio-economic variables such as social class, occupational and educational status and discretionary income, which interact with values as well as work and time-related stresses to further inuence consumption patterns. The authors believe these roles interact with values and norms to drive consumption behaviour, and that the focus on values only (as in VALS 2) will fail to uncover consumption differences driven by those interactions. The results demonstrate that nontraditional childless couple households do exhibit signicantly different consumption and attitudinal patterns from their traditional counterparts, and that it is inappropriate to aggregate them with traditional households of similar composition and head of household ages. This nding is important in that it suggests that extant modernised life cycle models must be modied to separate delayed marriages and true childless couples from newlyweds and empty nest couples. Another important outcome of this research is that it is the rst study to provide direct empirical support that it is appropriate to

aggregate childless remarriages with their rst marriage counterparts as advocated by Gilly and Enis (1981) and Hill and Rodgers (1964). This outcome supports the notion that current household composition determines household consumption, rather than previous life cycle history. This study was not designed to investigate the increasingly complex issue of developing a typology of remarriages, however, it is recommended that this topic be systematically developed and examined by future research. The proposed childless couple classication scheme explains over 80 per cent of the multivariate variance in food and beverage consumption, and nearly 85 per cent of that for husbands and wives attitudes and values. It also explains nearly 60 per cent of that for dollar values of major durable acquisitions, and nearly half that for value of home entertainment devices and furniture. It captures unique attitudinal and consumption differences between nontraditional and traditional childless couple households that are obscured by previous models aggregation approaches. Couples who delay marriage and those who delay or forego having children exhibit more modern sex role norms and less traditional religious, sexual and family values, and report greater time pressures and work-related stresses than their traditional counterparts. These attitudinal and value tendencies inuence household food and beverage consumption patterns as well as major durable acquisitions. Such households evidence more health-conscious food, beverage and alcoholic consumption patterns. Delayed marriages and true childless couples also tend to evidence different and greater discretionary dollar expenditures for selected major durable assets and home entertainment equipment and furniture. They reported the highest average dollar values for second and third cars, trucks/vans,

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boats and motorcycles/ATVs, VCRs, second TVs, and had higher values than newlyweds for primary homes, boats, campers/RVs, personal computers, and dining room and bedroom furniture. Consistent with expectations, delayed empty nest couples had the highest mean values for personal computers, campers/RVs and second homes, ndings which are attributable to their more individualistic values and leisureoriented lifestyles than their traditional counterparts backed by their higher discretionary income. Contrary to expectations, other aspects of the delayed marriage/childless couples durable acquisitions patterns did not directly carry over to delayed empty nest households. Such couples had the lowest mean values for primary cars, truck/vans, stereos and living room furniture. This nding is probably due to greater and more recent college expenses preempting household refurbishing, compared to traditional empty nest or delayed marriage/ childless couples. It should also be noted that delayed empty nest couples in this study were of the pre-baby boomer generation, and reached age 18 prior to the sweeping cultural value changes which occurred from the late 1960s through the 1970s. The age cohort of those who grew up during the latter era and delayed childbearing is only now beginning to enter the delayed empty nest stage. This segment, largely representing afuent dual career households, when it fully develops, is likely to evidence stronger attitudinal and consumption contrasts consistent with those conceptualised, than those observed in the present study, and may show a marked increase in the value of discretionary durable purchases. Limitations and future research implications While the proposed childless couple household classication scheme is theoretically sound and empirically strong, there are some limitations of this

study. First, the data set is not current and this limits a clear interpretation of some of the results and may have led to weaker and less distinctive attitudinal and consumption patterns than expected. A more recent data set in which delayed empty nest households are of the baby boomer generation would help to clarify some of the issues and possible interpretations developed here. A more current data set would also be likely to yield stronger attitudinal contrasts of delayed empty nest and childless couple households to newlyweds and traditional empty nest couples than those observed in the present study. The authors regard their methodological approach as exploratory because the data set used to develop operational denitions of childless couple categories was also used to assess the empirical performance of the resultant classication scheme. The validity of the proposed classication and generalisability of major ndings need to be established with larger samples in future research. The sample sizes for these comparisons, while clearly representative of the population, are small, and led to weaker signicance levels than would be likely to be observed if a larger sample had been used. The pattern of ndings, particularly for delayed marriage/ childless couples versus traditional newlyweds and traditional empty nest couples, was strong, internally consistent and consistent with prior theory. Many of the marginal ndings would have been highly signicant if based on larger samples. The above limitations should not diminish the importance of the theoretical underpinnings and empirical ndings of this study, which the authors believe make an incremental contribution to the life cycle literature. No previous extant studies have synthesised interdisciplinary theoretical underpinnings and empirical ndings by developing operational denitions separating delayed marriage/childless

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couples or delayed empty nest couples from traditional newlywed or empty nest couples. This study is the rst to empirically document that traditional and nontraditional childless couple households exhibit unique and distinctive attitudinal and consumption patterns, with multi-disciplinary theoretical underpinnings, and hence should not be combined. For future research, the authors advocate examining usage of particular food, beverage and restaurant offerings rather than aggregated expenditures, and recommend that expenditures for particular durable goods (eg, major kitchen appliances, major laundry appliances, living room furniture, etc) be examined over at least several years. Generational changes, age cohort effects and transitions of childless couples to subsequent life cycle stages should also be considered in future research. Postbaby boomer generation households are increasingly joining the ranks of delayed marriage and true childless couples. The operational denitions and methodological approach proposed offers a solid basis for future research in this area. The authors recommend using age at birth of rst child, rather than age at rst marriage (or estimates of it for second marriages) to separate delayed and traditional empty nest couples. They also suggest that applied market researchers need to determine whether the full childless couple scheme, or some reduced form of it, is most effective for particular consumption areas. They advise that it be utilised as a starting point, and that similar categories be aggregated as needed, based on empirical a priori comparisons, to produce an effective classication scheme suited to the problem at hand. Managerial implications Childless married couples are both the fastest-growing household type, and the largest category of American families. Families with no children are projected to be well over 28 million in 2010,

representing 38.6 per cent of families and 26.3 per cent of all households (American Demographics, 1993). This powerful trend and the upscale socioeconomic prole of nontraditional childless couples combines to make them increasingly important marketing targets. Recent product offerings suggest that marketers have recognised evolving opportunities related to changing attitudes and values and nontraditional life cycle progressions. Nontraditional childless couple households appear to be willing to pay more for good-tasting, high-quality, healthy, frozen dinner entrees (Business Week, 1992). Through the 1990s there have been a number of market entries for frozen dinner entrees touting low calories (eg, Lean Cuisine, Le Menu, Weight Watchers) or healthy low fat/ cholesterol content combined with high quality (eg, Healthy Choice, Tysons). Con-Agras Healthy Choice line seems to have targeted both spouses among delayed marriage and childless couples, and has emphasised evening, late night and weekend TV advertising, as well as news and nontraditional womens magazines. The line of space-saver kitchen appliances introduced in the 1990s by GE and Black and Decker was custom designed for the smaller kitchens of upscale, delayed childbearing, babyboomer couples who continued to live in apartments near the urban areas in which both pursued careers prior to having children. Delayed marriage/ childless couples clearly represent a major market for car, SUV, truck, van, motorcycle/ATV and boat marketers, as well as VCRs, personal computers and dining room and bedroom furniture. Both they and delayed empty nest couples represent major markets for healthy food and beverages as well as premium imported and domestic wines, but should not be targeted for junk foods, sugary beverages or desserts, high-fat dairy products or high-fat snack foods. Traditional empty nest

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couples, on the other hand, represent a major target market for these latter products, as well as hard spirits, and probably can be reached effectively through daytime and prime time television, as well as traditional womens magazines. REFERENCES
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K. (1999) Persistence and change in decisions to remain childless, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, May, 53139. Hill, R. L. and Rodgers, R. H. (1964) The developmental approach, in Handbook of Marriage and the Family, Christensen, H. T. (Ed.), Rand McNally, Chicago, IL, USA, 171211. Kirk, R. E. (1968) Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences, Brooks/Cole, Monterey, CA, USA, 617. Lazar, W. (1994) Handbook of Demographics for Marketing and Advertising: New Trends in the American Marketplace, Lexington Books, New York, USA. Macklin, E. D. (1980) Nontraditional forms: A decade of research, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, November, 90522. Morgan, S. P. and Chen, R. (1992) Predicting childlessness for recent cohorts of American women, International Journal of Forecasting, 8, 47793. Murphy, P. and Staples, W. (1979) A modernized family life cycle, Journal of Consumer Research, 6, June, 1222. PriceBonham, S. and Balswick, J. O. (1980) The noninstitutions: Divorce, desertion, and remarriage, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, November, 95972. Rexroat, C. and Shehan, C. (1987) The family life cycle and spouses time in housework, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, November, 73750. Riche, M. F. (1991) The future of the family, American Demographics, 13, March, 446. Scanzoni, J. H. (1975) Sex Roles, Lifestyle, and Childbearing: Changing Patterns in Marriage and Family, Free Press, New York, USA. Scanzoni, J. H. (1979), Social processes and power in families, in Contemporary Theories About the Family, Burr W. R. et al., (Eds), Free Press, New York, USA, 295316. Schaninger, C. M. and Danko, W. D. (1993) A conceptual and empirical comparison of alternative household life cycle models, Journal of Consumer Research, 19, March, 58094. Somers, M. D. (1993) A comparison of voluntarily childfree adults and parents, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, August, 64350. Spanier, G. B., Sauer, W. and Larzelere, R.

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Dong Hwan Lee and Charles M. Schaninger (1979) An empirical evaluation of the family life cycle, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, February, 2738. Spanier, G. B., Lewis, R. A. and Cole, C. (1975) Marital adjustment over the family life cycle: The issue of curvilinearity, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 37, May, 26375. Wagner, J. and Hanna, S. (1983) The effectiveness of family life cycle variables in consumer expenditure research, Journal of Consumer Research, 10, September, 28191. Wells, W. and Gubar, G. (1966) Life cycle concept in marketing research, Journal of Marketing Research, 3, November, 35563. Yankelovich, D. (1981) New Rules in American Life: Searching for Self- fullment in a World Turned Upside Down, Random House, New York, USA.

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Table A1 Husbands and wives attitude and value differences across childless couple categories DM/CC (n 21) 2.26dea 3.21cd 4.50c 2.90def 5.19a 4.74 4.34ce 1.50 2.49x 2.07w 1.86v 2.71abcd 1.63abcd
d

Husbands values/norms/tests on left side of table, wives on right side of table NW (sample size)/(df1,df2) (n 23) TEN (n 26) 3.30ad 4.22ac 4.04a 4.17ad 4.42aab 1.26 2.67x 5.13abc 5.43aab 5.20 5.52ab 4.61a 2.18w 2.97x 1.77 1.63abc 2.40c 2.85d 5.00aba 5.50a
abcd

DEN (n 20) 3.10ba 3.68aa 3.97a 3.95be 4.95b 4.68b 5.20abab 4.26b 5.08ce 5.30bcb 4.40c 3.75d 2.60d 3.30 3.50ca 3.49abc 4.49ca 4.19ade 5.41aba 5.25c 5.47def 5.16 5.16 5.53cd 5.00abc 3.83aba 2.30a 7.95 10.07z 1.69abca 1.83abcd 5.50a 2.91x 3.52y 1.38
z

OC (n 35) 3.40ce 4.30bda 3.61bc 4.23cf 4.38y 2.83ab 2.74cd 2.11w 4.85abc 4.95def 4.07ada 3.85ac 4.44acd 4.15ad 5.04a 5.13 4.85ac 4.26a 4.25cdab 3.22ac 2.45a 3.22 3.96ab 2.30ab 3.00a 5.28aa
ab

F (1,120) 2.84x 4.61y 2.61abc 2.37def 4.22ad 1.96ab 2.16ca 2.89aa 2.83bb 4.06be 3.67be 3.86bd 4.81b 4.28be 4.72a 4.94 5.28a 4.00b 3.50b 1.96 3.05 3.60ca 2.95cd 3.40abb 5.50b
ca

NW (n 23)

DM/CC (n 19)

TEN (n 27)

DEN (n 18)

OC (n 36) 3.61acb 4.39cf 3.54cfa 4.69ad 5.01da 4.36cf 4.97b 5.13 4.61bda 3.92ca 3.00bd

F (1,118) 5.02z 8.14z 5.10z 6.83z 2.62x 4.14y 1.15 0.15 2.52x 2.25w 2.84x

5.14de 4.38a 4.33bca 4.33ab 4.38b 3.96 3.35c 2.26c 3.37 3.26b 2.44b 2.67c
c

4.56ad 4.59b 4.93bd 4.89b

3.62b 2.38b 2.86 2.76aa 2.29a 2.86b 5.52a

b

2.44b 2.19 2.85ada 1.67ace 2.41aa 5.67ba

aa

1.86aab 2.64 2.89b

b

1.27 2.06 2.00bcd 2.50ef 2.69b 5.00bc

bcb

2.83x 6.07z 1.69bdf 2.47b 5.79acb 3.99y 1.41 3.20x Table continued overleaf

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 2, 3, 248268 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817

Sex role norms A wife should give up her job when it 2.20abc inconveniences her family If a mother of young children works, it 2.74ab should be only while the family needs the money A married woman should be able to work, 4.74aba even if it involves some inconvenience for her family A married womans most important task in 2.74abc life is to take care of her husband and children A married womans job should be just as 4.98a important as encouraging her husband in his job A married woman who works should be 5.35abc able to make long-range career plans If his wife works, a husband should share 4.67a equally in chores such as cooking and cleaning If a wife works, a husband should share 4.93aa equally in the responsibilities of child care Both parents should have the responsibility 5.17aa to care for small children Work and time pressures I feel I never have enough time to get 4.30a anything done I always feel rushed in completing my 3.57a days activities I spend so much time working, I do not 2.35a even have time to spend my money I feel a great deal of stress from work 3.26a I often feel drained when I get home 3.57a from work I nd my job interferes with my ability to 2.83a enjoy my family I have to plan in advance to spend time 3.17a with those close to me Self-fullment aspirations It is important to be well read and 5.30 educated

Attitudinal and consumption differences

267

268
DM/CC (n 21) 3.48a 3.31ac 4.21b 5.19b 4.10 4.20b 4.55dab 4.50 5.25de 5.45ab 5.22 3.44
ac

Table A1 (continued ) TEN (n 26) 3.85b 3.67 4.22c 4.96c 3.85 4.07 3.78ad 4.09ab 4.33ad 4.89b 4.89a 4.61 4.22a 4.19
ab bcd

Husbands values/norms/tests on left side of table, wives on right side of table NW (sample size)/(df1,df2) (n 23) DEN (n 20) 3.80c 4.25cd 4.40d 5.02d 5.25d 4.90 4.05 4.48cf 4.40 4.75
b aba

OC (n 35) 3.60d 3.14bd 3.44abcd 4.06abcd 4.19abcd 4.50ab 5.28 4.13 4.65a 4.91 1.57abc 2.22aba 3.13a 3.96ab 3.65a 1.39abca 0.86 3.84y 3.39x 3.89bdc 3.70y 2.91aa 2.04aba 3.00a
aa aa

F (1,120) 2.25w 2.54x 2.67x 4.20y 5.12z 1.80v 1.76

v

NW (n 23) 4.22ab 4.26a 4.98abca 4.91aa 5.52abc 3.67a 3.78 3.72bb 4.39a 3.72b 3.72ab 4.18c 4.68b 4.36ce 5.01b 3.71 4.33 4.50 2.89ad 3.89ac 3.52ba 4.76aa 3.60b 1.95ab 3.27bc 2.30cd 3.32 4.04 1.96ac 2.26ba 3.56ac 3.52 2.50be 3.17ea 3.25d 4.50 3.44c 2.53bc 2.72d 2.89a 3.50
d

DM/CC (n 19)

TEN (n 27)

DEN (n 18)

OC (n 36)

F (1,118) 0.77 0.90 3.22x 1.49 4.10y 0.90 2.63x

4.61abcd 4.22ab 4.52a 5.13a 5.11a 5.17a 3.48 4.87aabc 4.40ad 4.61 2.91 2.26ab 3.26a 4.48a 3.17ab 1.70a 1.87 1.57bcdc 2.51ba 1.94 3.02ab 1.52ab 2.52aba 3.14abc 2.59cdb 3.50ac 2.29a 3.22aa 2.30a 2.93ca 2.13aabc 2.90db 1.62b 2.22ab 3.62ca 4.00aab 3.48db 4.43bcd 3.41x 3.14 2.29cd 3.10b 4.19a 3.38 3.26aca 3.39a 4.58 3.38 2.40ea 3.55 4.33b 3.40 3.44bde 4.14aba 4.97aba 0.33 2.26w 1.67v 1.38 4.71 4.37 4.55 4.23 0.57 4.48be 3.86adef 2.51x 3.10
a

5.29b 5.29ba 3.41

a

5.07c 4.85a 3.04

b

3.65

ba

4.42 4.36
a

0.37 1.23 2.81c 4.25bde 4.06acda 4.86bc 4.35abc 2.67acb 1.89acd 3.35bd 3.90a 3.47y 4.87z 2.68x 2.09w 1.89v 3.10x 3.02x 3.55y 0.90

Dong Hwan Lee and Charles M. Schaninger

I feel a strong need for new experiences I like to seek out new foods and tastes I am concerned with self-fullment I want to be outstanding in my eld of work I want something meaningful to work toward I want time and energy left over to pursue personal interests I prefer a more creative life to nancial well-being Self-improvement is important to me and I work hard at it People should be free to look, dress and live the way they want Traditional family values The father should be the boss in the house I go to church regularly Everything is changing too fast today Today, most people do not have enough discipline Strict, old-fashioned upbringing and discipline are still the best way to raise children Four or more children is the ideal number for a family to have It is morally acceptable to stay single and have children It is morally wrong for couples to live together even if they are not married To buy anything on credit, other than a house or a car, is unwise 2.05de 2.80cd 2.85bc 4.20ca

Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 2, 3, 248268 #Henry Stewart Publications 1472-0817

Hypoth. DF 140.00 140.00 Error DF 330.00 337.14 Sig. of F 0.003 0.006 Wives attitudes, overall MANOVA results Value Approx. F Hypoth. DF Error DF 2.49271 0.15834 1.46892 1.41748 140.00 140.00 330.00 337.14 1.46892 1.41748

v p , 0:20, w p , 0:10, x p , 0:05, y p , 0:01, z p , 0:001 for F-test values. A priori comparisons: Pairs with same superscript are signicantly different at p 0:05 level; pairs with the same superscript with + (eg, a+) are signicantly different at p 0:10 level. All items were measured on verbally anchored six-point Likert scales, with a 6 representing strongly agree, and a 1 representing strongly disagree. Labels: NW Newly wed couples; DM/CC Delayed marriage/true childless couples; TEN Traditional empty nest; DEN Delayed empty nest; OC Older couples.

Husbands attitudes, overall MANOVA results Test Name Value Approx. F

Sig. of F 0.003 0.006

Hotellings T 2 Wilks Lambda

2.49271 0.15834