BU432 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Frugality, Social Mobility, Conspicuous Consumption
Document Summary
Chapter 12: income, social class and family structure. Consumer demand for products/services depend on: ability to buy, willingness to buy, discretionary income: money available to a household over and above that required for a comfortable standard of living. Social class: homogamy: marrying people in a similar social class to ourselves, social stratification: creation of artificial divisions, when scarce and valuable resources are distributed unequally to people in higher social statuses, achieved vs. Ascribed status: achieved: earning resources through hard work or talent, ascribed: being born with it, social mobility, horizontal mobility: moving from one position to another (roughly equivalent in social status, ex. A nurse becoming a school teacher: upward mobility, ex. Income: greatest buying power and market potential: however, the way we spend money is more telling than how much we spend, better predictor of major expenditures that do not have status or symbolic aspects, like a washing machine.
