Clothing gift expenditures: The influence of gender, ethnicity, and age

The study's purpose was to understand better the role of clothing in gift giving, specifically to estimate the probabilities associated between gender, ethnicity, and age and CU (household) clothing and clothing gift expenditures, as well as to identify mean differences between CU clothing and clothing gift expenditures based on the gender, ethnicity, and age of CU heads. The study data were drawn from the 2001 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) and probabilities were estimated using Bayesian statistical analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for mean expenditure differences. The findings indicated that male-headed CUs had a higher probability and higher mean expenditures relative to clothing and clothing gifts than femaleheaded CUs for the adult and infant clothing categories. African-American-headed CUs had the highest mean clothing expenditure for the adult and infant clothing categories, although Caucasian- and Hispanic-headed CUs had higher probabilities for purchasing clothing. CUs with heads 45∼54 and 55∼64 had the highest mean expenditures for adult clothing, while, CUs with heads 14∼19 and 20∼24 had the highest mean expenditures for infant clothing. A comparison of the study results and the literature suggests there may be differences between individual and CU expenditure behaviors relative to clothing and clothing gift giving.