Gender-wise Analysis of Children’s Influence across Stages of Family Decision Making Process

Abstract

Past studies have considered gender of children as an important variable (Lee and Collins, 2000) in explaining the influence of child on family decision making. The findings from prior research suggest that in family purchases, female children (probably due to the early learning of sex roles) have more influence than male children (Lee and Collins, 2000; Moschis and Mitchell, 1986). This study provides a gender-wise analysis of children’s influence across stages of family decision making process in the purchase of child product and family product in Indian families. A cross-sectional survey method was carried out and the primary data for the study was collected through a “structured non-disguised” questionnaire. The sample population consisted of 488 male children and 278 female childrenin the age group 13 to 18 years.The collected data have been analyzed and interpreted with the help of statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation and repeated measures ANOVA. It was posited that children’s influence in stages of decision making process for child product and family product varies across (i) gender of children (H1), (ii) place of residence, i.e., rural and urban families (H2). Both the hypotheses were not supported by the analysis results.