VTechWorks staff will be away for the winter holidays starting Tuesday, December 24, 2024, through Wednesday, January 1, 2025, and will not be replying to requests during this time. Thank you for your patience, and happy holidays!

Browsing by Author "Batten, George P."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Consumer Socialization in Families: How Parents Teach Children about Spending, Saving, and the Importance of Money
    Batten, George P. (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-06)
    The current study examines the consumer socialization practices of American parents, and provides an analysis of the various ways in which they socialize their children into a consumer role within the family. Drawing from literature on gendered patterns of consumerism, familial consumer socialization, and the culture of money, this study's aim is to describe how parents teach their children to enter a consumer role, how to spend, save, and budget money, and how to culturally value (or devalue) money and wealth. This study also explores whether children's gender or differences by socioeconomic status (SES) play a part in how parents socialize their children into a consumer role. Twenty five parents were interviewed and answered questions regarding the actual tools, methods, and strategies they employ in their children's socialization into a consumer role, such as whether parents shop with their children, set allowances, or assist children in opening savings and checking accounts. Additional questions assessed the meanings parents give to money and a consumer role, such as whether parents stress the importance or the vanity of wealth. This analysis contributes to existent knowledge about the nuanced ways in which parents socialize their children as competent consumers, and has implications for familial relationships and gender and class inequality in regards to family and consumer activities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Patterns of Parental Spending: Do Parents Spend More Money on Sons or Daughters?
    Batten, George P. (Virginia Tech, 2013-06-03)
    This study examines the spending patterns of parents, indentifying differences in the amount of money that parents spend on select items for sons compared to daughters. Using secondary data from the "Consumer Expenditure Survey: Diary Survey" dataset from 2008 through 2010, this study tests the hypothesis that parents with adolescent girls spend more money on apparel, beauty and hygiene products, health care, and education compared to parents with adolescent boys. An interaction effect for gender and socioeconomic status by parental expenditures was also included in order to test the long-debated Trivers-Willard hypothesis that high status parents will spend more money on sons while low status parents will spend more on daughters. In determining whether an association exists between parents\' expenditures and the gender of their children, multiple regressions were used to test the hypotheses, allowing the results to be generalizable to single-child and two-child families of adolescents across the United States. The regressions show that within one-child households, parents with daughters do in fact spend more money when making purchases for apparel, education, and medical expenses. However, these findings do not apply to two-child families, as no significant differences were found within these households. Following these results, limitations to the study are discussed, as well as the study\'s implications for familial relationships, consumer socialization, and gender inequality among children.