Social class and (some) related wives’ work involvement (WWI) variables have long
been valued by marketers as primary or supplemental bases for segmentation because
they capture differences in values, norms, roles, lifestyles, and broad consumption
patterns. These constructs have also been embraced because they capture the composite
effects of a number of related demographic descriptors such as occupation, education,
income, age, and family size. The purpose of this research effort is to develop an
alternative consumer behavior construct "Dual Spousal Work Involvement" (DSWI), and
to compare its performance to that of alternative WWI models. DSWI incorporates the
occupation and work involvement of both spouses, not just wives (WWI) or husbands
(social class). The manuscript develops a conceptual framework depicting the various
antecedents (e.g., social class at birth, gender role norms) and consequents (e.g., work
and time pressure, consumption patterns) of both spouses. This approach leads to an
eight-category classification scheme based on the relative occupational status and work
involvement of both husbands and wives. The results show that the DSWI model
outperforms extant WWI models and that this scheme isolates strong and meaningful
consumption pattern differences for both non-durables and durables. |