Evaluating Consumer Usage of Nutritional Labeling: The Influence of Socio-Economic Characteristics

In the present study, households with two or more children were 18 percent more likely
to make use of food labeling when making purchase decisions. As with the greater
responsibility borne by females in selecting the food which others eat, parents too,
have a responsibility and intrinsic interest in providing safe and wholesome meals for
their children. This protectionistic motivation may explain why households with several
children are more attentive to nutritional labeling.

Household size was found to significantly decrease the importance of nutritional labels.
Those with households of 4 or more members were 17 percent less likely to frequently
use nutritional labeling. These findings are inconsistent with those of Feick, Herrmann,
and Warland and Guthrie et al. A possible reason that large households make less
use of nutritional labeling than smaller households may be attributable to the value of
scarce time of those responsible for preparing meals for many other people. Intuitively,
the estimates for household size also appear to conflict with the finding that households
with two or more children are more likely to use nutritional labeling. However, this
disparity suggests that the effect of household size is related to the age of household
members. In effect, larger households may be less attentive to nutritional labeling if
they are primarily made up of adults. In such households, individuals are more likely to
purchase food items for themselves rather than for the entire family. Yet large
households which also include several individuals under the age of 17, where parents
are responsible for selecting food items for children, may in fact be frequent label
users.

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