Chinese authorities said in May that the country will support couples that wish to have a third child, adding that the policy and its relevant supporting measures will help improve China's population structure and respond to the aging population.

A family with three kids will undoubtedly see more domestic chores. With both parents busy working and longing for some downtime at weekends, how to divide domestic responsibilities is bound to be the topic of heated debates. The situation might be easier for families that have a full-time housewife or house husband for that matter, but housekeeping is none-the-less strenuous.

That is where home appliances ranging from microwaves to dishwashers come to the rescue. However, who in a household is more willing to purchase such appliances to save time? What are the factors that influence allocation of domestic time and the intention to buy these products?

A research conducted by Fu Guoqun, marketing professor with Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, and partners focuses on spouses’ motivations to buy time-saving home appliances and the actual purchases they make. It finds that purchase intention is determined by “guilty conscience” and frequency of use as a result of the proportion of domestic chores each party shoulders, and offers advice for appliance manufacturers.

Key findings:

— Contrary to popular belief, husband and wife, in general, show an equal level of willingness to buy time-saving household appliances.

— Further analysis finds that the party doing less housework, usually a male, is more willing to buy time-saving products out of a guilty conscience and in an attempt to compensate for the spouse’s trouble.

— The party doing more housework, usually a female, is also very likely to buy these products since they are expected to be used very frequently.

— Defensive advertising that stresses the hardships in doing domestic chores can appeal to spouses to be “liberated” from housework while enhancing the guilt and willingness to compensate in the mind of the less responsible party, meaning that defensive advertising has better marketing impact than advertising that appeals to positive factors.

BACKGROUND: MEN’S ROLE IN PURCHASE LONG OVERLOOKED

Housework usually means unpaid work that aims to serve family members or maintain household functions. Global studies reveal that a wife usually spends twice or three times the amount of time devoted by a husband doing household chores. Although the total time spent on housekeeping is decreasing, a female spouse still shoulders the lion’s share.

Household time allocation has long been a key subject for marketing because it is believed that time spent on housekeeping has a substitution relationship with the purchase of time-saving products. New household economics holds that a family is a production unit that produces services needed by family members using inputs from the market and household time, so there should be an optimal combination of household time and the purchase of time-saving products. However, some scholars disagree, stressing that a family is not a single rational decision-maker, and gender, division of roles, intra-family rules and emotions are all factors that will also influence allocation. For instance, a husband with a modern view of gender equality might spend more time housekeeping, and wives, in some cases, maintain marriage stability and family harmony by means of housework.

Another perspective holds that professional women are more inclined to buy time-saving products or urge other family members to chip in so as to better cope with limited time. However, studies find that whether women have full-time jobs or not is not a significant factor that influences the amount of time other family members spend on housework. One research focusing on the relations between women’s employment status and the purchase of microwaves finds that, when a microwave was still expensive and rare, a family with a working wife was more likely to buy one because of higher family incomes; nowadays, whether a woman works or not is not obviously related to the household purchase of a microwave.

BREAKTHROUGH: INTRODUCTION OF “HOUSEWORK SHARE” FACTOR

Previous studies usually focus on which party is dominant in the decision-making of purchases, but in reality, even in the case of joint decision-making, one party has more power or resources to have the final say. Consequently, household decision-making is no different than individual decision-making.

Previous studies also tend to focus on women, largely ignoring the role and influence of men in buying household products.

In a bid to rectify previous prejudices in favor of a key decision-maker, our research introduces the imbalance between two spouses’ devotion to housework and the ensuing guilty conscience of the party contributing less as a new factor into the equation to improve the prediction of household decision-making outcomes.

HYPOTHESIS: POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN HOUSEWORK SHARE, PURCHASE

Fairness is an issue in every marriage. When one party does more housework, the other will feel that the party is not treated fairly, and one or both parties will try to compensate to strive for a level of fairness. The party that does less housework is inclined to have a guilty conscience and attempt to make up for the other party’s sacrifice by buying time-saving products.

Hypothesis 1: Housework share influences an individual’s purchase intention via guilt. The less housework one does, the more guilty one feels, and the more willing to buy products. One doing more housework will feel less guilty and thus less inclined to buy.

Hypothesis 2: Housework share positively influences purchase intention via frequency of use. The more housework one shoulders, the more frequently used a product is expected to be, and thus one is more willing to buy it. Conversely, the less frequently used a product is to be, the less likely it is to be brought.

Hypothesis 3: Perceived value of a time-saving product positively influences the impact of guilt on purchase intention. If a product is perceived to be of low value, one is unlikely to buy it even if one feels very guilty.

Hypothesis 4: How advertising appeals to customers influences the impact of housework share on purchase intention. For those doing less housework, defensive advertising is more persuasive than advertising that appeals to positive factors; for those doing more housework, how advertising appeals to customers have no impact on their purchase intention.

Are these hypotheses true or not?

PRACTICE: HOUSEWORK DISTRIBUTION VS. PURCHASE INTENTION

Question 1: Are those doing more housework more willing to buy time-saving products?

According to our survey, answers to this question can be divided into four types: a. wife does more overall housework and more housework in a single category; b. wife does more overall housework but husband does more housework in a single category; c. husband does more overall housework and more housework in a single category; d. husband does more overall housework but wife does more housework in a single category.

Our research shows that women who do more overall housework and more housework in a single category are more willing to buy time-saving products than women who do more overall housework but less in a single category. Meanwhile, women who do less overall housework have negligible impact on their households’ purchase decisions regardless of whether they do more or less housework in a single category.

Based on our analysis of these four types, families with women doing more housework are more willing to buy time-saving products than those with men doing more housework. Families with women doing more overall housework and more housework in a single category is most willing to make a purchase.

Therefore, it is our conclusion that the distribution of time doing overall housework and the time doing housework in a single category impact purchase intention in different ways and through different mechanisms. The less time an individual spends on overall housework, the more willing one is to make a purchase; the more time an individual spends on housework in a single category, the stronger the purchase intention too. When the two conditions overlap, women do more overall housework as well as more housework in a single category, leading to their families being most willing to make a purchase.

Question 2: How do “guilt” and “frequency of use“ influence purchase intention?

Centering on this question, our second survey was conducted via door-to-door household visits, with the respondents’ answers analyzed by statistics softwares. We find that the less housework a party does, the more willing one is to buy time-saving products as a result of guilt and compensation. Also, the party doing more housework in a single category is more willing to buy a product since he or she expects to use it more frequently to relieve the burden of housekeeping.

Guilt and frequency of use illustrate, to some extent, the impact of housework share on purchase intention, but the two factors exert influences in opposite directions — those doing more housework feel less guilty, resulting in a negative impact of housework share on purchase intention; meanwhile, those doing more housework in a single category expect to use a product more frequently, making them more likely to buy it, which can be seen as a positive impact of housework share on purchase intention.

Gender-wise, men are more likely than women to buy time-saving products out of guilt, while women are more likely to do so due to high frequency of use, or, in other words, the direct effect of the product.

Question 3: What are the factors that can modulate the impact of guilt on purchase intention?

Two experiments designed around the third question aim to determine: a. can a product’s perceived value alter guilt? b. can advertising, through appealing to negative or positive values, modulate the relations between housework share and purchase intention?

Our research shows that while housework share affects purchase intention via guilt, the perceived value of a time-saving product is also a significant modifier.

We find that the less housework one does, the more guilty one feels and the more likely one is to make a purchase, but a guilt-driven purchase is also conditioned by the perceived value of the product, and defensive advertising that appeals to the hardships of doing housework can more effectively stir up guilt. (In this regard, experiment results contradict hypothesis 4 in that defensive advertising is also effective to those doing more housework by encouraging them to be liberated from housekeeping burdens.)

CONCLUSION: HOUSEWORK SHARE AFFECTS BOTH PARTIES’ PURCHASE INTENTION

First, housework share affects purchase intention via guilt and frequency of use. The party doing less housework is largely mobilized by guilt to buy time-saving products; the party doing more housework feels less guilty or not at all, and he or she buys products so as to save time and relieve burdens.

Second, regardless of other factors, the amount of housework hardly affects purchase intention. However, when guilt and frequency of use are taken into consideration, housework share exerts direct influence on purchase intention: the more housework one does, the more likely one is to buy a product.

Third, the perceived value of a product can modulate the impact of guilt on purchase intention: the proposition that the party doing less housework is more willing to buy a time-saving product is only tenable when said product has a high perceived value; if the perceived value is low, guilt will not affect purchase intention.

Last, for both parties in a marriage, regardless of the amount of housework each side does, defensive advertising that stresses negative concepts such as the hardships of housekeeping is more effective than advertising that appeals to positive things like happiness.

REVELATION: DEFENSIVE ADVERTISING IS BETTER

First, firms should not focus on the so-called dominant decision-maker in a couple when locating marketing targets, and more attention should be paid to those doing less housework.

Second, when drafting marketing strategies, firms should use defensive advertising that stresses hardships so as to persuade couples to relieve the burdens of housekeeping and get liberated from the chores. Defensive advertising also appeals to guilt and a compensation mechanism in those doing less housework.

Third, firms must attach great importance to the functions and values of their time-saving products. If a product can only stir up guilt but fail to persuade the party of its real value, a purchase is nonetheless unlikely.

Meanwhile, it is possible that in some families, husbands are not prone to feeling guilty no matter how much domestic chores their wives do. In other words, the traditional notion that a wife is rightly responsible for domestic affairs while a husband deals with things outside the house will also weaken the tie between housework share and purchase intention. Research on factors influencing purchase intention will go on.

About the Author

Fu Guoqun is Professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Marketing at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He had been serving as Chair of the Department of Business Administration at Wuhan University, a member of Academic Degrees Committee at Wuhan University, and a member of the Standing Committee of the NPC, Hubei Province. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Wuhan University and Ph. D. in Management from Aston University.

Professor Fu's research interests includeBrand equity management, Image of country origin and Consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. His research has been accepted for publication in journals such as Journal of Product & Brand Management, Fifth International Conference(International Society for Marketing and Development), Journal of Marketing Management, Asia-Pacific Conference Proceedings, Journal of Management, Chinese Business and Market, Chinese Soft Science, Nankai Business Review, Chinese Journal of Management Science and so on..

Professor Fu currently teaches courses in Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Models.