Determinants of fish consumption by household type in China

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to separate households into several types based on their features, and then to further investigate determinants of household fish consumption in China by figuring out consumption preference divergences between types of households under the effects of economic and socio-demographics factors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper first applies Multiple Correspondence Analysis to separate the modalities of variables and households according to their features, with health knowledge and time constraint of a spouse highlighted. Then, the transcribed principal information of both variables and households has been added into Marshallian demand function with fish price, income, child effect, and health status for identification of factors on household fish demand. The robust fixed effect and robust random effect GLS regression has been conducted.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insights about what and how factors affect household fish consumption. It suggests that, for all households, pork is still a main substitution of fish, fish consumption regarding to each household should be constant, and fish consumption differs a lot between provinces. For households with higher dietary knowledge, the authors found that increase of income, the existence of adolescent would cause an increase in fish consumption, while illness of household member makes a decrease in fish consumption. For households with working women who have higher opportunity cost of time pursue much more convenience, then consume less fish at home than their counterparts.

Research limitations/implications

The increasing variety in consumer’s dietary need makes the understanding of which becoming much more difficult than before. This paper uses three-wave panel data with households spread over nine provinces in China, but the results still has its limitation since china is the one with vast in territory and residents. In the future, the difference between urban and rural area in fish consumption need further research.

Practical implications

The paper reveals the common determinants of fish consumption in China, and makes a further clear answer by a further discussion on different household types. The results have rather high implications for making targeted policy or precisely forecasting a future fish demand in China, which will rather be helpful for fishery industry development in China.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills an identified need to study the divergence of determinants or the impact degree of different factors on fish consumption in China by household types. An increasing trend of food away from home has significant effect on how to count household size in food consumption studies, and the identification of persday in this study shows its advantages in dealing with this issue, which makes a contribution on resolve the overestimation of household size issue.

Citation

Zhou, L., Jin, S., Zhang, B., Cheng, G.z.c., Zeng, Q. and Wang, D. (2015), "Determinants of fish consumption by household type in China", British Food Journal, Vol. 117 No. 4, pp. 1273-1288. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-05-2014-0182