Food Consumption in Young-Aged Families Based on Their Income Difference and Household Characteristics

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the characteristics of food consumption in young-aged households from the viewpoint of their income difference and household characteristics. Accordingly, young-aged households are classified as a double-career or a single-career household, and households containing only husband and wife, or households with children. The expenditure elasticities of household food consumption are estimated with Engel functions by using corresponding data from the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure. The main finding from the empirical study is as follows ; although young families have a tendency to depend on convenient food, large expenditure elasticities of homemade meals, which indicate a heavy contribution of homemade meals to the diet, are also observed for relatively low income families.