Working women and per capita household consumption expenditures; an untouched reality

Abstract

Working women have more compulsive buying tendencies which can lead to a significant increase in their household consumption expenditures. This study investigates the effects of changes in the number of working women on household per capita consumption. We test the hypothesis that changes in the number of working women have a discernible impact on household final per capita consumption expenditures, due to their differing consumption propensities, by doing an empirical analysis based on panel data set of 36 OECD economies within the period 2000-2016. The results indicate that changes in the number of working women increase the household per capita consumption expenditures. The result also implies that age plays a significant role in working women consumption decision making and may lead to significant differences in aggregate consumption expenditure. These findings suggest the importance of understanding changes in the number of working women in planning for aggregate consumption mobilization and in the formulation of aggregate growth policies.