IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v644y2012i1p220-233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Examining Overconsumption, Competitive Consumption, and Conscious Consumption from 1994 to 2004

Author

Listed:
  • D. Jasun Carr
  • Melissa R. Gotlieb
  • Nam-Jin Lee
  • Dhavan V. Shah

Abstract

Taken together, Robert Putnam’s work on the decline of social capital (2000) and Juliet Schor’s insights about the rise of “the new consumerism†(1999) suggest a shift in values in which our responsibilities as citizens have taken a backseat to our desires as consumers. This article complicates this shift in civic and consumer culture by examining generational differences in overconsumption, competitive consumption, and conscious consumption between 1994 and 2004. Using survey proxies for these concepts from the annual DDB Needham Life Style Study, the authors find that Generation X exhibits the highest rates of overconsumption and competitive consumption while also displaying the lowest rates of conscious consumption. Notably, the trends for these three aspects of consumer behavior vary in terms of overtime stability, general tendency, and economic responsiveness. These differing patterns of spending and consumption have far-reaching implications for society as a whole, particularly as the Civic Generation fades, the Boomers move out of the workforce, and Generation X becomes mature and culturally dominant.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Jasun Carr & Melissa R. Gotlieb & Nam-Jin Lee & Dhavan V. Shah, 2012. "Examining Overconsumption, Competitive Consumption, and Conscious Consumption from 1994 to 2004," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 644(1), pages 220-233, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:644:y:2012:i:1:p:220-233
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716212449452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716212449452
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716212449452?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Easterlin, Richard A., 1987. "Birth and Fortune," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226180328, December.
    2. Foxall, Gordon, 1984. "Evidence for attitudinal-behavioural consistency: Implications for consumer research paradigms," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 71-92, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diane J. Macunovich, 1999. "The fortunes of one's birth: Relative cohort size and the youth labor market in the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 215-272.
    2. Apolte, Thomas & Gerling, Lena, 2015. "Youth bulges, insurrections, and politico-economic institutions: Theory and empirical evidence," CIW Discussion Papers 3/2015, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    3. Baruce C. Rudy, 2014. "The Wal-Mart Effect? Exploring the Social Costs of Explosive Organizational Growth," Working Papers 0191mgmt, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    4. Dahlberg, Susanne & Nahum, Ruth-Aïda, 2003. "Cohort Effects on Earnings Profiles: Evidence from Sweden," Arbetsrapport 2003:3, Institute for Futures Studies.
    5. Mark Rank & Thomas Hirschl, 1993. "The link between population density and welfare participation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 607-622, November.
    6. Enrique Acosta & Alain Gagnon & Nadine Ouellette & Robert R. Bourbeau & Marilia R. Nepomuceno & Alyson A. van Raalte, 2020. "The boomer penalty: excess mortality among baby boomers in Canada and the United States," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    7. Elizabeth Fussell, 2002. "The Transition to Adulthood in Aging Societies," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 580(1), pages 16-39, March.
    8. Zsolt Spéder & Balázs Kapitány, 2014. "Failure to Realize Fertility Intentions: A Key Aspect of the Post-communist Fertility Transition," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(3), pages 393-418, June.
    9. Timothy Riffe & Kieron J. Barclay & Sebastian Klüsener & Christina Bohk-Ewald, 2019. "Boom, echo, pulse, flow: 385 years of Swedish births," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2019-002, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    10. Heinrich Hock & David Weil, 2012. "On the dynamics of the age structure, dependency, and consumption," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1019-1043, July.
    11. Emerson Patrick M. & Knabb Shawn D., 2020. "Education Spending, Fertility Shocks and Generational Consumption Risk," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-26, June.
    12. David Weil, 2006. "Population Aging," Working Papers 2006-09, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    13. Easterlin, Richard A., 2006. "Life cycle happiness and its sources: Intersections of psychology, economics, and demography," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 463-482, August.
    14. Apolte, Thomas, 2014. "Youth bulges, insurrections, and politico-economic institutions," CIW Discussion Papers 2/2014, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    15. Beth J. Soldo & Olivia S. Mitchell & Rania Tfaily & John F. McCabe, 2006. "Cross-Cohort Differences in Health on the Verge of Retirement," NBER Working Papers 12762, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Ono, Hiroshi & Lee, Kristen Schultz, 2006. "Specialization and Happiness: A U.S.-Japan Comparison," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 631, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 18 Feb 2008.
    17. Anke Plagnol & Richard Easterlin, 2008. "Aspirations, Attainments, and Satisfaction: Life Cycle Differences Between American Women and Men," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 601-619, December.
    18. Sackmann, Reinhold, 1997. "Der Einfluß von Verrentungsprozessen und Mobilitätsprozessen auf die Arbeitsmarktrisiken von Berufseinsteigern (The influence of retirement processes and mobility processes on the labour market risks ," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 30(3), pages 675-680.
    19. Larry Jones & Alice Schoonbrodt, 2016. "Baby Busts and Baby Booms: The Fertility Response to Shocks in Dynastic Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 22, pages 157-178, October.
    20. Auer, Wolfgang & Danzer, Natalia & Rainer, Helmut, 2013. "Fixed-term Employment and Fertility: Theory and Evidence from German Micro Data," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79894, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:644:y:2012:i:1:p:220-233. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.