Gendered Consumption, Classed Parenting: The Social Organization of Family Spending

• In Event: Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8. Race, Gender, and Inequality

Abstract

Parental expenditures on children are one way that parents might seek to help build their children’s opportunities, though buying lessons, sports opportunities, schooling, and books, toys, and games. While scholars have extensively documented class inequalities in parental expenditures, there has been less attention to differences in spending between parents of boys and girls. We use data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) to examine whether spending patterns differ based on the gender of children. The results reveal few overall gender differences in broad investment-oriented domains such as total child-related spending, child care, education, and reading, where the coefficients are close to zero and not statistically distinguishable from zero. In contrast, several discretionary and identity-related categories display clear gender patterns. Households with all boys are more likely to report expenditures on sports, electronics, and toys and games, whereas households with all girls are more likely to spend on lessons, cultural activities, music and photos, and trips. In particular, in the lowest-income households (quartiles 1), parents are more likely to spend on boys than on girls for sports and for toys and games. In contrast, among highest-income households (quartiles 3 and 4), parents are more likely to spend on girls for lessons, pets, and trips. 

Authors

• Sabino Kornrich, New York University-Abu Dhabi

• Orestes Pat Hastings, Colorado State University

• Mariana Amorim, Washington State University