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Hazel Kyrk’s recognised contributions include a shift in analytic focus from production to consumption, pioneering work to measure household production as part of family income, empirical studies of family behaviour, and contributions to policy. But her account of ‘wise’ consumption and its intersection with ‘high’ living standards is not well understood. The three aims of this chapter are to explain ‘wise’ consumption across Kyrk’s three major books, to consider its role in Kyrk’s empirical studies, and to explain why it fell into oblivion. Tackling what Wesley Mitchell described as the ‘most baffling of difficulties’, Kyrk explained what constitutes a family’s ‘good’ in a manner that was critical of mere emulation. Her 1923 book required that wise consumption include new and personal elements. Her 1929/1933 book detailed five qualitative criteria (balance between interests, full and varied experiences, originality, rational sources of satisfaction, and the use of scientific information). But her 1953 book weakened this normative language, reflecting Margaret Reid’s view that Kyrk’s account was too demanding. Although Kyrk felt wise consumption avoided paternalism, her peers disagreed (Hoyt, 1938/1945; Reid, 1938/1945). We close with some problems with Kyrk’s account and a brief consideration of its continuing relevance.

Consumers with Down syndrome are present in all countries, but there has been little marketing research examining their consumption experiences. The purpose of this exploratory investigation is the analysis of the consumption meanings and practices of Down syndrome adults from their own point of view and from their families’ perspectives.

Data was drawn from 44 narratives interviews that included families'stories, description of album photos and projective techniques.

The research shows from the families’ perspectives how barriers to consumption prevent Down syndrome adults from becoming agentic consumers. The findings reveal the “labels” associated with the vulnerability of people with Down syndrome and their families in their market experiences.

Research is limited to a single country and location and is focused on a specific group of overlooked consumers. We encourage the expansion of the research to a wider group and different locations.

The research identifies barriers to social inclusion that can support public policy and marketing manangement that contribute to a more humanistic marketing.

The research presents narratives of adults with Down syndrome, their mothers and siblings. The findings contribute to a comprehension about the welfare of this traditionally neglected, vulnerable group of consumers, which is useful for consumers, Down syndrome people and their families, marketing managers and public policymakers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of wedding-related consumption of urban families in China during the past 50 years.

This study used qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect and analyse data from 157 families in China. Data collection occurred through semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys.

The findings are as follows: average wedding expenses per family have increased, mainly as a result of the substantial growth of indirect wedding costs; the percentage of total wedding expenses represented by direct costs pertaining to the ritual is trending downwards; the percentage of total wedding expenses borne by the groom’s family is much higher than that borne by the bride’s family, and the gap is enlarging; the proportion of newlyweds living with parents was more than 50 per cent in the 1970s and 1980s, decreased to 10 per cent in the 1990s and began slightly increasing again after 2000.

The authors used signal investment theory to explain the fact that the groom’s family bears more of the wedding expenses than the bride’s family does, but more evidences are needed to verify the theory.

This study contributes to the understanding of evolution of wedding consumption of urban families in China, as well as how social and economic factors influence wedding consumptions in different ages, an area with limited previous research. The authors also propose signal investment theory as an alternative explanation to current wedding consumption theories to justify the phenomenon.

This paper aims to investigate dynamics of food consumption practices among poor families in a developing country to advance the Food Well-being (FWB) in Poverty framework.

The research design used semi-structured interviews with 25 women and constructivist grounded theory to explore food consumption practices of poor families in rural South India.

Poor families’ everyday interactions with food reveal the relational production of masculinities and femininities and the power hegemony that fixes men and women into an unequal status quo. Findings provides critical insights into familial arrangements in absolute poverty that are detrimental to the task of achieving FWB.

The explanatory potential of FWB in Poverty framework is limited to a gender (women) and a specific country context (India). Future research can contextualise the framework in other developing countries and different consumer segments.

The FWB in Poverty framework helps identify, challenge and transform cultural norms, social structures and gendered stereotypes that perpetuate power hegemonies in poverty. Policymakers can encourage men and boys to participate in family food work, as well as recognise and remunerate women and girls for their contribution to maintaining familial units.

This paper makes an original contribution to the relevant literature by identifying and addressing the absence of theoretical understanding of families, food consumption and poverty. By contextualising the FWB framework in absolute poverty, the paper generates novel understandings of fluidity and change in poor families and FWB.

This paper aims to examine how ambivalence and intergenerational support intersect with consumption in experiences of sharing within the family.

Consumer research studies usually use one of two family paradigms (i.e. solidarity and conflict), but the role of ambivalence in family ties is often neglected. This paper examines how ambivalence relates to adult intergenerational support, specifically within the context of sharing, consumption and family identity. In contrast to consumer research studies, sociological studies identify the intersection between intergenerational ambivalence and intergenerational support within family life. This study draws on sociology literature to interpret data from phenomenological interviews with downwardly mobile Greek consumers involved in familial intergenerational support and sharing. The voices of adult recipients and providers of resources are captured, and the transcribed interview texts are analysed using a phenomenological-hermeneutical process.

Three types of consumer ambivalence were identified that reflected different types of conflicts between consumption choices and different levels of family identity (collective, relational and individual).

Future research should explore ambivalence and family sharing in different family structures and during different transitions. Future research should also investigate how this study’s findings resonate in societies less affected by austerity measures with stronger welfare states that nevertheless experience a rise in intergenerational support.

The study problematises previously somewhat polarised (i.e. positive vs bleak) views of the family in consumer research. Family sharing is highlighted as a major antecedent to consumer ambivalence, and different types of consumer ambivalence within intergenerational relationships within families are conceptualised. This paper proposes an extended typology of coping strategies aligned along a practical–emotional continuum.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how technological devices impact on family mealtime rituals. The intention is to understand how the consumption of technological devices transforms eating practices, and how the meanings of family quality time are continuously evolving through the consumption of mobile media devices.

Insights are drawn from two independent, ethnographic studies that adopted an interpretive approach which employed multiple methods, including 63 visual diaries; 40 written diaries; observations in schools, homes, and Sikh temples (73 items observed), and 66 in-depth interviews. Both studies involved children, aged between 13 and 17 years within the UK, and were conducted for a period of over 12 months each. Informants were recruited through interaction with schools, Sikh temples and the Sikh community.

The findings reveal interplay between family quality time, and the consumption of technological devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, ipods and their associated application packages. Of particular interest is how these devices transfer cultural meanings surrounding family mealtime interactions. The paper uncovers how family quality time is altered and evolved in form, but not ultimately abandoned, and argues that the pervasive nature of technology at mealtimes has implications into food cultures and identity.

The encroachment of media devices on the food environment has often been described with negativity. However, this study tells a different, yet positive tale about transformations in social institutions such as the family and the school as a consequence of the consumption of technological devices at mealtimes.

The transgenerational influence of inherited family capital on consumers' luxury consumption has been studied recently in the mature luxury market. However, little research explores this topic in the emerging luxury market. In China's Confucian culture, “family face” as part of “family inheritance” has been conceptualized as a factor driving luxury consumption. However, this hypothesis has not been empirically tested. The current research, therefore, seeks to examine the impact of economic and cultural capital on Chinese consumers' luxury consumption within the family inheritance context and the roles that face concern and gender play to reveal the particularities of a specific emerging luxury market.

A sample of 324 Chinese consumers was recruited in Shanghai. With the full sample, the author first assessed the effects of economic and educational capital (both personal and family sources) and face concern on luxury consumption using regression analyses. Next, the author conducted the regression analyses again by gender.

Unlike trends in the mature luxury market, Chinese consumers' educational levels do not drive their luxury consumption, and the transgenerational influence of economic and cultural capital functions as a negative factor. Influenced by the patrilineal tradition, higher levels of luxury consumption to compensate for parents' lower income and educational levels and to enhance family face are found only in the male consumer group, but not in the female group.

This research contributes to expanding the current understanding of emerging luxury markets and how the Confucian tradition influences Chinese consumers' luxury consumption through gender role norms.

This paper aims to examine the interplay of emotions and consumption within intergenerational exchanges. It shows how emotions pervade the trajectories of grandmothers’ relational identities with their grandchildren through consumption practices.

This study analyses qualitative data gathered via 28 long interviews with French grandmothers and 27 semi-structured interviews with their grandchildren. This study draws on attachment theory to interpret the voices of both grandmothers and their grandchildren within these dyads.

This study uncovers distinct relational identities of grandmothers linked to emotions and the age of the grandchild, as embedded in consumption. It identifies the defining characteristics of the trajectory of social/relational identities and finds these to be linked to grandchildren’s ages.

This study elicits the emotion profiles, which influence grandmothers’ patterns of consumption in their relationships with their grandchildren. It further uncovers distinct attachment styles (embedded in emotions) between grandmothers and grandchildren in the context of their consumption experiences. Finally, it provides evidence that emotions occur at the interpersonal level. This observation is an addition to existing literature in consumer research, which has often conceived of consumer emotions as being only a private matter and as an intrapersonal phenomenon.

The findings offer avenues for the development of strategies for intergenerational marketing, particularly promotion campaigns which link either the reinforcement or the suppression of emotion profiles in advertising messages with the consumption of products or services by different generations.

This study suggests that public institutions might multiply opportunities for family and consumer experiences to combat specific societal issues related to elderly people’s isolation.

In contrast to earlier work, which has examined emotions within the ebb and flow of individual and multiple social identities, this study examines how emotions and consumption play out in social/relational identity trajectories.

The purpose of this paper is to explore social dynamics around food and clothing provisioning for young families and how involvement in environmental concerns shapes those dynamics and presents challenges and opportunities to in terms of evolving consumer tastes. Through collecting and analysing narratives of mothering, the authors explore the influence of children on decision making in household provisioning; in particular, how their education into sustainable concepts through the European initiative of eco-schools impacts provisioning.

The exploratory research design specifically sought the demographic profile identified in extant literature as engaging with sustainability issues to explore how they were interpreted into familial consumption. This resulted in 28 unstructured interviews exploring a range of related topics with a group of highly educated working mothers with a profession.

The study finds that family consumption behaviour is mediated by relations towards environmental concerns and taste positions taken by both parents and children. It illustrates how care for children’s safety, social resilience and health and well-being is habitus informed as well as being the subject of wider institutional logics including educational interventions such as school eco-status and participation in mother and child activity groups. However, tensions arose surrounding the children’s socialisation with peers and space was provided to help the children self-actualise.

The exploratory goal of the study limited the scope of its empirical work to a small group of participants sharing consumer characteristics and geographical location.

The research provides ideas for retailers, brands and marketers to better position their product offering as it relates to growing family concerns for ecological issues and sustainable consumption, as well as what motivates sustainable behaviours, from both the child and mothers perspective.

The research identifies the immersion of sustainability into family households when there are no financial implications, influenced through campaigns, schools and society. This provides examples of what motivates sustainable behaviours for retailers and marketers to develop strategies that can be capitalised on.

The originality of the research emerges through examining how children influence sustainability within households and decision making, moving beyond health implications to educate children to be responsible consumers through play and authentic experiences.

This paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions around consumption. The authors pay particular attention to how a relational dialectics analysis reveals a relational change in the family providing evidence to demonstrate how a family’s unique relational culture evolves and transitions.

Qualitative insights from a relational-dialectic analysis on 15 intercultural families are used to illustrate the interplay of stability with instability in the management of intercultural dialectic tensions within these families.

Intercultural dialectical interplay around food consumption tensions are implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Examples of dialectical movement indicating relational change are illustrated; this change has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.

This study provides qualitative insights on relational dialectics in one intercultural family context and reveals and analyses the dialectical dimensions around consumption in the context of intercultural family relationships. The research approach could be considered in other intercultural and relational contexts.

Family narratives can be analysed within the context of two meta-dialectics that directly address how personal relationships evolve; indigenous dialectic tensions within a family can also be identified.

This paper demonstrates the qualitative value of a relational dialectics analysis in revealing how food consumption changes within families are the result of reciprocal or interdependent learning, which has consequences for relational change.