IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp388.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Child Expenditure: The Role of Working Mothers, Lone Parents, Sibling Composition and Household Provision

Author

Listed:
  • Farrell, Lisa

    (affiliation not available)

  • Shields, Michael A.

    (Monash University)

Abstract

This paper uses detailed diary information from the British Family Expenditure Survey (FES) to investigate the expenditure patterns of school-age children. We estimate a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, and find that, whilst most commodities are normal goods, sweets and toys are luxury items for children. Children of lone parents have lower budget shares for expenditure on soft drinks, leisure, personal goods and books/magazines, but higher budget shares for expenditure on sweets and vice products (alcohol, cigarettes and gambling). Having a working mother increases child expenditure on food products and toys. A higher parental budget share, on any given commodity, is generally associated with an increased child budget share suggesting that children mimic their parent’s expenditure patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Farrell, Lisa & Shields, Michael A., 2001. "Child Expenditure: The Role of Working Mothers, Lone Parents, Sibling Composition and Household Provision," IZA Discussion Papers 388, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp388
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp388.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charlier, Erwin & Melenberg, Bertrand & van Soest, Arthur, 2001. "An analysis of housing expenditure using semiparametric models and panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 71-107, March.
    2. Deaton, Angus, 1986. "Demand analysis," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1767-1839, Elsevier.
    3. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-1475, September.
    4. Basu, Kaushik & Van, Pham Hoang, 1998. "The Economics of Child Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 412-427, June.
    5. repec:bla:econom:v:68:y:2001:i:271:p:427-53 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Deaton, Angus S, 1989. "Looking for Boy-Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15, January.
    7. Becker, Gary S, 1992. "Fertility and the Economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 5(3), pages 185-201, August.
    8. Blundell, Richard & Pashardes, Panos & Weber, Guglielmo, 1993. "What Do We Learn About Consumer Demand Patterns from Micro Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 570-597, June.
    9. Bertrand Melenberg & Arthur van Soest & Erwin Charlier, 2000. "An analysis of housing expenditure using semiparametric cross-section models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 437-462.
    10. Richard Blundell & Alan Duncan & Krishna Pendakur, 1998. "Semiparametric estimation and consumer demand," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(5), pages 435-461.
    11. Ziggy Macdonald & Michael A. Shields, 2001. "The Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Occupational Attainment in England," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(271), pages 427-453, August.
    12. Edward C. Norton & Richard C. Lindrooth & Susan T. Ennett, 1998. "Controlling for the endogeneity of peer substance use on adolescent alcohol and tobacco use," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(5), pages 439-453, August.
    13. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 1997. "Quadratic Engel Curves And Consumer Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 527-539, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lisa Farrell & Michael A. Shields, 2007. "Children as consumers: investigating child diary expenditure data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(2), pages 445-467, May.
    2. Gong, X. & van Soest, A.H.O. & Zhang, P., 2000. "Sexual Bias and Household Consumption : A Semiparametic Analysis of Engel curves in Rural China," Other publications TiSEM 896cf4d1-37e5-490b-9e05-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. De Agostini, Paola, 2014. "The effect of food prices and household income on the British diet," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. repec:lan:wpaper:615522 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Gozalo, Pedro L., 1997. "Nonparametric bootstrap analysis with applications to demographic effects in demand functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 357-393, December.
    6. Thanasis Stengos & Yiguo Sun & Dianqin Wang, 2006. "Estimates of semiparametric equivalence scales," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 629-639, July.
    7. Mark B. Stewart, 2009. "The Estimation Of Pensioner Equivalence Scales Using Subjective Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(4), pages 907-929, December.
    8. Tey, (John) Yeong-Sheng & Shamsudin, Mad Nasir & Mohamed, Zainalabidin & Abdullah, Amin Mahir & Radam, Alias, 2009. "Evidence of Engel curves in food away from home: A study of Malaysia," MPRA Paper 14833, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Olivier Bargain & Olivier Donni & Prudence Kwenda, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Working Papers 2011-031, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    10. Tarek Ghalwash, 2008. "Demand for Environmental Quality: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Behavior in Sweden," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(1), pages 71-87, September.
    11. Arthur Lewbel & Krishna Pendakur, 2009. "Tricks with Hicks: The EASI Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 827-863, June.
    12. Sonia Bhalotra, 2004. "Parent Altruism, Cash Transfers and Child Poverty," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 04/561, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    13. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Panos Pashardes, 2004. "Comparing the True Cost of Living Indices of Demographically Different Households," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 21-39, January.
    14. Bargain, Olivier B. & Donni, Olivier & Magejo, Prudence, 2011. "Intrahousehold Distribution and Child Poverty: Theory and Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire," IZA Discussion Papers 6029, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Laura Blow, 2003. "Explaining trends in household spending," IFS Working Papers W03/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Ralf A. Wilke, 2006. "Semi‐parametric estimation of consumption‐based equivalence scales: the case of Germany," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(6), pages 781-802, September.
    17. Madden, D., 1999. "The Kids are Alright? An Analysis of Child Benefit using Irish Data," Papers 99/26, College Dublin, Department of Political Economy-.
    18. Giorgio Fagiolo, 2001. "Engel Curves Specification in an Artificial Model of Consumption Dynamics with Socially Evolving Preferences," LEM Papers Series 2001/16, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    19. Krishna Pendakur, 2005. "Semiparametric estimation of lifetime equivalence scales," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 487-507, May.
    20. Bargain, Olivier & Donni, Olivier & Kwenda, Prudence, 2014. "Intrahousehold distribution and poverty: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 262-276.
    21. Lyssiotou, Panayiota & Pashardes, Panos & Stengos, Thanasis, 1999. "Testing the rank of Engel curves with endogenous expenditure," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 61-65, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    lone parents; quadratic almost ideal demand system; Child expenditure; working mothers; sibling composition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp388. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.