In the history of unit-consumer scale, Nicholson's study, as examined in this paper, was the first that used a social scientific method. He devised unit-consumer scales for children by using actual family budget.
This paper aims at verifying Nicholson's method applying recent data in Japan, the “National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure” conducted by the Statistic Bureau of the Management and Coordination Agency.
The result, calculated according to Nicholson's method, shows that the unit-consumer scale is the highest for the second child excluding the items of fuel-lighting and water charges. The unit-consumer scale on education for the third child is 80% of that of the first child.
However, Nicholson's method presents several problems and the amount of data was not sufficient for calculation.
In this paper, calculation according to different ages of children is not estimated. This problem will be discussed in the following paper.
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