Sweet home or battle of the sexes: who dominates food purchasing decisions?

Abstract

By analysing big data collected from 1990 to 2017 on the consumption behaviours of men and women living alone and in heterosexual couples in Switzerland, we classified 75 food items in terms of their consumption within couple versus single households. We defined and quantified the gender dominance exhibited in the food purchasing activities of couples. Our results showed that to form consumption of couples, the average consumption of single women weighted 0.6, while that of men weighted 0.38. In addition, couples were found to consume more drinks and pricier foods than singles. Our findings span various areas, including the socioeconomics of food, food choice, social eating, gender power, eating behaviour and population and consumer studies. The robustness of the findings may be validated for other countries and cultures, and the findings may be of interest to researchers from various fields.