An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship Among Wife's Employment Status, Stage in the Family Life Cycle, Meal Preparation Time, and Expenditures for Meals Away From Home

Abstract

The allocation of time is an ultimate reflection of quality of life choices. Since the current trend for increased proportions of dual wage earner families will probably continue, data on how they allocate and consume time will help in clarification of this dual wage earner lifestyle on future consumer decision making and behaviour. Role theory is used to organize data on the relationships between consumption of time in the wives’ provider and homemaker roles. The relationship between purchased services, i.e. meal preparation, and wives’ time use is explored. Employment is related to meal preparation time, but not to the substitution of buying meals away from home. The age of the youngest child is important in explaining out‐of‐home meals. Implications for research and future lifestyles are discussed.

Mother's Time on Meal Preparation, Expenditures for Meals Away from Home, and Shared Meals: Effects of Mother's Employment And Age of Younger Child

“…These findings contradict those of Redman (1980) and Goebel and Hennon (1982) concerning the relationship between age of children and EMPAFH, but support their findings concerning no relationship between mother's employment and EMPAFH. It would appear that a substitution of money for time is not made when the mother spends more time in the wage earner role.…”

“…Rizek and Peterkin (1980) reported that, in 1977, expenses for meals away from home for households where the female head2 was employed 20 or more hours per week averaged $5.80 per household member per week. She also reported, as did Goebel and Hennon (1982), that families with preschool children spent less on meals away from home than other families, and that there is a positive correlation between age of children and allocations for meals away from home. Each away-from-home meal for employed female household heads averaged $2.04, compared to $2.22 for other households.…”

“…Fourteen percent of husbands with employed wives, compared with eight percent in other households, usually planned or helped plan meals. The ideology of housekeeper role sharing is ahead of its practice (Nye, 1976;Szinovacz, 1979;Sanik, 1981;Robinson, 1977;Stafford and Duncan, 1979;Fox and Nickols, 1983;Goebel and Hennon, 1982;Brubaker and Hennon, 1982;Meissner, Humphries, Meiss, and Schue, 1975). The proportion of husbands who have primary responsibility for any routine housekeeper task is low, only about 16 percent (Stafford and Duncan 1979).…”

“…Men were responsible for car maintenance and lawn work while women were responsible for cooking, washing dishes, laundry, writing letters, cleaning house, and marketing. The ideology of housekeeper role sharing is ahead of its practice (Nye, 1976;Szinovacz, 1979;Sanik, 1981;Robinson, 1977;Stafford and Duncan, 1979;Fox and Nickols, 1983;Goebel and Hennon, 1982;Brubaker and Hennon, 1982;Meissner, Humphries, Meiss, and Schue, 1975). This gap may be narrowing and the trend toward spousal equality in housekeeper role tasks increasing (Stafford, 1980), especially as the level of wives' human capital increases (Stafford and Strouse, 1982).…”

Home Management Research: State of the Art 1909–1984

“…Some recent research has explored time usage and other variables in two-earner fam-ilies and has produced unanticipated findings. For example, in analyzing food preparation time and expenditures on meals away from home, Goebel and Hennon (1982) found an expected significant decrease in meal preparation time when the wife was employed but not the corresponding expected increase in expenditures on meals away from home. Stafford (1983) did not equate employment status with employment time as is frequently done by researchers.…”