The purpose of this research is to investigate the differentials and commonalties in the consumer behavior and attitudes of the working woman as opposed to the non-working woman. The findings of the research are analyzed to determine their impact on the performance of marketing institutions and functions. The major hypothesis tested in this research is: Working women comprise a distinct market segment, which differs in kind from the non-working woman. Both primary and secondary data are used for this study. The principal sources of secondary data are the 1960 and 1970 U.S. Government Census Tracts of the Census of Population. The primary data was obtained from a questionnaire, sent to 1,093 women residing in specific Census Tracts within the Dallas, Texas Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Tracts were selected by geographical dispersion and statistically tolerable limits for female labor force participation and median family income. This criteria insured the inclusion of women for whom the value of work was either high or low. The analysis of the data revealed that working women may be segmented into a distinct consumer market. Demographic characteristics related to consumer behavior were found to be (in order of importance) Age, Income, Education, Age of Children at Home, and Marital Status. The working woman is more likely to be younger, unmarried, have fewer, if any, children at home, and have a family income of less than $10,000 dollars, than her nonworking counterpart. Major differentials, related to work status were found in the areas of Food Shopping, Personal Clothing Shopping, Use of Leisure Time, Newspaper Readership and Television Viewing, Frequency of Eating Out, Use of Vending Machines, Use of Mail Order Catalogs, Attitude Toward and Use of Discount Houses, Opinion and Use of Advertising and Its Portrayal of Women, and Use and Knowledge of Credit. The use of services was more related to income than to work status.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc503889 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | McCall, Suzanne H. |
| Contributors | McWhorter, Paul, Dorse, Alvin C., Stephens, Elvis C., Cochran, Kendall P. |
| Publisher | North Texas State University |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | xi, 354 leaves, Text |
| Rights | Public, McCall, Suzanne H., Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
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