Impact of Mother’s Education and Employment Status on Children Purchasing Independence

Impact of Mother’s Education and Employment Status on Children Purchasing Independence

Dr. Manjula Singh*

Department of Business Administration

M.J.P. Rohilkhand Univ.,Bareilly

ABSTRACT

In the present era of increasing status of mother in the family, makes it necessary to study them as an important agent who influence the decision of the family while purchasing any type of product. But the influence of children cannot be avoided as they are rising as the new purchase agent.  The exposure of the children towards media and free flow of information, is making them every day stronger decision maker. No doubt the knowledge of the children is little bit more than the parents. Apart from all these factors the role of mother is increasing due to their increasing status either in education or employment status. For the same reason the present research is conducted and the emphasis is given to explore the factors which give impact on the children during any purchase independence enjoyed by them. The present work confines to the factors which directly or indirectly influence family decision making. All the demographic and socio-economic factors are taken into consideration to find the impact of the mother in family purchase pattern.Although children are considered as the new and most influential member of the family who influence the family purchasing pattern. The pattern is changing very fast , the reasons for this change in pattern may be numerous. Economic and social condition of the family plays the major role in decision making. There are various stages where the role of the each family member has individual importance. An important point that emerges is that children are not only influenced by their family members; they also influence family purchasing decisions in various degrees for different product categories. It is found that children influence mothers in case of products relevant to them. It means that the trend of requests by children and yielding by mother makes the final decision to purchase in a family. Hence, it is not only mother but children who act as important influencer in family purchase decisions. Therefore, it is suggested that marketers in promoting their products forming part of this study should focus more on children. They also need to vary their strategies depending on age, requests and the product as the case may be. Mother’s education affects the purchase independence of children. Children of intermediate mothers enjoy somewhat greater purchasing independence than children of mother of other education category, but the differences are found mainly for more child relevant products.Employment status of the mother does affect children’s purchasing independence. Children of service class mother enjoy purchase independence only in case of snacks, drinks and indoor/outdoor games. While children of unemployed mothers and business class mother, the purchasing independence is either “less frequently” or “rarely” in case of relevant products and it is “zero” in all less relevant products categories.ConclusionA paradigm shift has been observed in the recent past from women- centric marketing orientation to child centric.  In the past decades the percentage of the working women increased which called for time saving equipment and products. Now it is found that third agent (children) who also possess financial power based on the savings, influences the family decisions to a greater extent as well as is empowered to make purchase decisions for self. The study concludes that the purchasing independence enjoyed by children largely depends upon the education and employment status of mother. Increase in the mother education is found to be inversely proportional to purchasing independence of children. Also if the mother is working (service) the child enjoys high leverage to purchasing decisions. Though the researcher has attempted the best for understanding the relationship between the mothers’ status and children purchasing independence, this work may be the drop in the ocean of the research.