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Gendered Shopping: A Seven Country Comparison
Lee Ellis, Miranda Abild, Hasan Buker, Joseph R. Park and Ping He
Published: 2012/06/01
Abstract
Studies in Western countries have revealed that women spend more time shopping than do men with the exception of online shopping. To extend this finding to non-Western populations, the present study used identical methods of observing visitors to indoor shopping malls in seven different countries. Three of the countries were Western (Canada, Spain, and the United States) and four were non-Western (China, Laos, Malaysia, and Turkey). In all seven countries, the proportion of women significantly exceeded the proportion of men. Among children and adolescents, female also outnumbered their male cohorts in most of the seven countries, although the differences were not always statistically significant. Theoretical explanations for these findings are explored. Overall, we propose that the most credible explanation involves a combination of social, evolutionary, and neurohormonal variables.
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